Project Phantom
by S1iverSun
Summary: Danny and the Titans find themselves in the last place they'd ever expect. Prison. With the twisted and tangled workings of this new world, they must find a way to set aside their differences and escape with their lives and minds. Phantom Planet never happened.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not sure how this will turn out. It was a writing prompt in class so I thought I'd edit it to make it a full story and a crossover.**

Prologue: Breakout

Danny never killed a man before. But, it was his only chance to escape this nightmare.

He looked up from the cold rusted seat that squeaked and squealed under him with each uncomfortable bump and shift on this subway. He wished it was as public as a subway. Instead, it was just him and another man sitting across from him, shifting with the motions of the underground train. It was a very alienated environment seeing as neither bothered to as much as scowl at each other. Pure white light flashed in short intervals. There were no lights in the actual shuttle. Every slow shift of the agent before him was captured in the bursts of light like a stop image. Danny always tensed when that starch-white suit of that man disappeared into the pitch black. Two pins in his pocket flashed making Danny wince. A white cloth slowly and discreetly ran over the shining gun. Danny now realized how intimidating that was in real life as opposed to an old movie.

It was now or never. He was being transferred. There was only one guard per-prisoner here. The rest of the cluster sat lazily a few shuttles up. Danny tugged on the metal cuffs that kept his wrist wrapped around the silver pole in front of him. A clang came a few seconds before Danny could see the actual image of metal scraping against metal. Digging into his skin, the cuffs began to form scars with his vain efforts to somehow break loose.

"Stop moving, Phantom," the guy in white said peering up from his gun.

Danny narrowed his cold blue eyes and tugged again. He kept rattling the chain out of bitter spite. The agent growled and put his gun in his holster. Danny traced him with his eyes as the he stood up and made an effort to tighten Danny's cuffs. Danny winced as he felt his circulation cut off a little more and his skin tear apart as the ectoplasma-coated metal hugged his bones.

With this sort of thing on him, his ghost powers weren't good for shit. It was swing bow rachet-type, meaning it could adjust from the smallest wrist length to Skulker's wrist. If Danny tried to fire a bolt or turn invisible these things would send a "corrective shock" into him and his powers would go MIA for a few hours. He was once afraid he had lost them. It was a bad shock from trying to turn intangible to get out of these things. Not only did he not fade, but he woke up the next morning in solitary confinement and no powers for two meals. He shuddered at the thought.

The guard caught his look and said with a slight grin, "Too tight, Phantom?"

Danny rolled his eyes as the agent casually strolled back to his seat. The pin in his pocket flashed with the vanishing light. Danny waited another second before he moved his hands to slightly move the pin from between his fingers to his fingertips. He waited for the flash. Moving quickly, he put the pin halfway into the lock of his handcuffs, bent it and repeated on the other side. When the flash of light came, he could only just make out an almost hook shape at the tip of the pin. He pushed it underneath the lock and pushed up. The lock quickly released and the handcuff practically fell off his wrist. He was free from the pole, but not without consequence. A small distinct click echoed from the key in the lock. Danny tensed and hesitated.

The guy in white looked up and spotted the fallen handcuff. Danny should have kept that on. The agent grabbed at his gun and the sound of it charging broke the silence between them. It went dark. Danny slid away from his seat before a green burst of energy illuminated the small shuttle. The shuttle flashed white once more. Everything seemed to slow down as Danny observed the man with the gun.

His heart was racing and his mind was automatically following orders. Time had all but stopped in Danny's mind. Danny's heavy boots clanked against the metal floor giving him away, but the hiss of the gun charging wasn't in his opponents favor either. The cuffs rattled; still attached to his right hand. Danny moved to the left as a burst of energy shot out. Glass cracked and crashed behind him. There was a flash of light. The deafening sound of an alarm bell chimed all around Danny. He was on a time limit now.

The guy in white peered over his glasses to examine a smashed window. Smoke rose from the barrel of the gun. Danny's arm was outstretched in front of him with the pin between his fingers. Danny took two more steps before the guy in white turned towards him. It went dark. Danny heard the gun hiss to charge. He moved his arm forward with one quick thrust. He felt something crack under the pressure. The pin in his hand stuck into something soft.

The gun went off. This time, the hot ectoplasma grazed against Danny's leg as it fired into the floor. Danny collapsed onto his knees, cursing. The guy in white was screaming. Another shot was followed by the sound of crashing glass. In the screaming chaos Danny sat cradling his leg. He tried to curse away the pain. He couldn't stop now. He had to finish what he started. "Get up," he scolded himself. Lights flashed on.

The agent's was tossing his head in all driections hysterically while high-pitched squeals escaped his mouth. Danny launched up at his arm and managed to lock his free cuff aroung the man's arm. The darkness didn't faze Danny. The two of them were now attached, but Danny was going to use this to his advantage. He twirled the guy in white around and pushed him down onto the ground. Danny's hand followed.

The lights flashed on. Danny knelt over the man's shoulders. The guy in white's left arm was twisted around his neck and pulling up due to the force from Danny's wrist. Danny placed a heavy boot on the man's neck and pulled hard on his cuffed hand. The metal dug into his skin. Danny didn't notice the cuts getting deeper. The pathetic sight of a suffocating agent vanished. The slow distinct croak of a man under Danny's foot was drowned out by the never-ending alarm.

When the light came back, Danny watched as the agent's right arm slowly choke a final breath out of him.

"Too tight?" Danny asked bitterly.

All sounds from the man ceased. Danny gave a few final tugs before letting his wrist relax. It went dark again. He had to wait a few moments for the light to come back to quickly search the guy in white and find the real keys to his cuffs. With a few quick movements in the dark, Danny was free. He tried making a ball of ecto-enegry as an experiment. The green sphere of light illuminated the room before the white flash occurred. A small smile tugged on the corner of his lips.

Danny bent down and checked for a pulse by the neck, but he couldn't find anything. Danny had done it. In the space of a few seconds he had done it. He had killed a man. It wasn't even that hard.

It was easy.

Why was it so easy?

Danny shook his head. He couldn't think of that now. He had to get out of here. He concentrated and let two rings of light surround his body and change him into his ghost form. He let himself turn intangible and flew forward. Just as his head managed to pass out the window, something shocked him and he was suddenly blown back into the train. His back took most of the impact and Danny cried out in pain that time. He saw the white rings flash around him as his human form overwhelmed him again. He tried to change but a shot of pain from his leg crippled him now that the adrenaline rush was completely drained. Danny cradled his leg. He tried to get up, but he only managed to slam against a seat before being forced to his knees again.

Danny now felt like a complete and total idiot. He should have known that they'd have an energy field. He couldn't afford to wreath in pain. He had to get up. He had to get out. Escape. Escape! The door to the shuttle swung open. Escape! Danny tried to get up but there was no different result. Everything went dark and then suddenly, there were five guys in white from two shuttles over, surrounding him. Escape! Every single gun hissed with full charge. Escape!

Danny blacked out.

Danny's muscles contracted, his heart raced and his head felt like he would explode as a burst of electricity pumped through his system. He tried to scream out in pain but something was in his mouth. Everything was buzzing in his body and nothing was in his control. Something was keeping him down. If nothing was there he would have probably flipped in all directions like a dying fish.

Once the initial shock was gone, Danny's heart was still racing and he couldn't control his breathing. Every breath was hard to take in. He felt like he'd cough at the slightest thing. If he did cough, his throat would come out of his mouth. There was a bright white light above his head. A shadow of a head and shoulders stood over him.

"What kind is this one?" asked a scratchy voice.

"You heard of Phantom?" said a deeper voice to the right.

"The one that caused the mass-murder?" said the man above him. His voice was raised enthusiastically and Danny could have sworn there was a gleam of a smile.

"That's the one."

"What's he doin' all the way in Jump?"

"Transfer. The report from the Guys in White says he tried to escape," said the deeper voice. Danny frantically tried to adjust to see where the voice was coming from.

"Put a bookmark in that for me-Oh, I think he can still understand us," said the scratchy man. He leaned in closer and Danny could see a slight gleam from a set of glasses when the man tilted his head. Danny tried to leap up out of his position, but he hardly had the energy to do more than breathe frantically. "Don't worry. We're goin' to take you to a place designed especially for people like you. First, we just have to…fix you."

_Fix me? What do you mean fix me?_ Danny tried to voice his thoughts but nothing came out.

Glasses looked over to his side and said, "Increase voltage. Shock him again."

Danny felt the electric current run into his chest. His heart raced so fast it might burst and his mind went into overload as searing pain burned everywhere. He had to get out of here. He had to-

A hot flame burning into Danny's arm make him burst his eyes open and scream. A woman's voice shouted to his left, "He's awake."

"We're not done yet!"

"Shock him!"

"We could kill him like that! Why do we-"

"Do it, Shepherd!"

"Clear!"

Danny's mind was now twisted in hundreds of directions as his muscles fired with the current of energy. His heart felt as if it had burst. He was not going to die now. He was going to escape just to spite these people if that's all he had left. For that, he had to be alive. His heart only had enough energy to race for a few seconds before his body slumped against the cold flat surface. Breathing was hard to do, but he labored on trying to cling to whatever life he might have left. Whatever he might have that separated him from the monster inside him.

… **I must do better. The titans will appear in the next chapter. I know Danny with a dark past isn't a very original idea, but I hope that this story will be different from the others you've read. Please, tell me what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, favorited and followed!**

**Responses to Reviews:**

**Fluehatraya: I'm glad you like my writing style. I'm trying to keep everything as close to what the POV character would think as possible.**

**Umbra-Luna: Thank you so much. Here's your update.**

**VampireFrootloopsRule: To confirm, it was not Cy, BB, and Robin at the end. Sadly, I didn't get around to them in this chapter either. Hopefully the next one. I hope this chapter is good enough to hold you.**

**I combined this and the second chapter because they really went together. To the story!**

Chapter 1: Waking up

.

The classic high-pitched alarm bell rang throughout the entire facility. The lights went out and metal covers slid down from the ceilings covering all exits. Prisoners were filed and counted. Everyone scrambled through the halls in ordered chaos, searching. The doc. ran up from his lab and stood beside a taller man.

"What the devil is goin' on?" he asked. His glasses were falling from his pointed nose and his white hair was sticking out on all sides. The black beady eyes behind his circle glasses were wide with fear.

"Prison break," his company said leaning against the wall and looking outside of the limits of the facility. There was nothing out there for miles besides a watch tower and an open field. Jump City itself, the closest civilian area, was sixty-eight miles away.

"What? How can you stand there so calmly? We have only have a short window before they reach-"

"Relax Doc, they never get far," he said confidently. He was growing tired of the doc. He was too worried all the time about the safety of his experiments. He considered them to be his precious lab rats and it was the end of the world if one of them even had a scratch on them if it wasn't from testing. The man didn't even have military experience. For god's sakes he asked what a magnum was not even an hour ago. That's probably what annoyed this man the most about the doc.

"If they've found a way to control themselves again, they'll be deadlier than ever and uncontrolled. If they break through the defenses-" There was a loud crash and a classic Humvee was suddenly racing away from the border. "They've broken through!" screamed the Doc. He raked at his hair and bit his lip as he saw them go. Honestly, the doc. seriously underestimated this facility's military.

The man lifted a radio and said, "Halo, give me a count on the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle."

"_You can just call it a Humvee_," said a static voice from across the radio.

"Halo," he emphasized the name as a warning. "Give me a count."

"_Basic Humvee, pre-1996. No weapons, no armor, no armament carriers, no roof. This is a Jeep with camo paint. Five prisoners escaping…"_

_ "_Fire at will," a sly white smile slid onto the man's face with the sheer satisfaction of having so much power at the press of a button. The power of life and death at his fingertips with a single phrase was a truly beautiful thing. What was more beautiful is the exact kind of people he had the power of life and death over.

A loud crack in the distance rose over the alarm system. The doc. couldn't see any people, only figures, but they seemed to all lower a level crouching down in the back of the truck. "_Four prisoners…"_ another crack echoed through the open. The Humvee swerved for a moment before it managed to round back to a straight path. "_Three prisoners…"_ Crack. The Humvee began to swerve and did not stop. "_Front right tire blown out…"_ Crack. "F_ront left tire blown out. Sir, shall I continue?" _

The doc. looked from the Humvee, which had come to a complete stop, to the man beside him. The man raised the radio to his lips, "That'll be all, Halo, standby." He changed channels, "All units detain surviving prisoners. They've just earned themselves a week of solitary confinement. Shoot to kill if there's resistance," he said. There was an affirmative from a few different voices. The man lowered the radio. "You see, Doc, I've been running things my way for about ten years now. None of your little experiments will escape from this place any time soon."

"It's comfortin' to know you have a sharp-shooter, but that's not goin' to-"

"It will. Nothing get's past Halo. Believe me, Doc."

"…I suppose I haven't got much of a choice."

"Good. Besides, you shouldn't be worrying about a few brave souls. I hear you got yourself a new subject. How's the work on our newest prisoner coming?"

"He should be almost fully recovered by tomorrow. It would have only taken four days but that wound on his leg had to be treated. We've kept him under for the other four to heal it properly, but I'm not sure how well he is going to be able to function when he wakes. I was goin' to request another few days of artificial physical therapy."

"No."

"No?"

"Most of these guys manage to use their legs in the hour; he'll be no different, maybe better. That thing you put in their arm only contains their outer actions. He has advanced healing as one of his talents. Just wake him up a little earlier and wait for him to get used to the basics."

"And, in between that time," the doc. hesitated. His voice was softer and more uncertain as he spoke. "S-should we keep him… in the mad house?"

"No, schedule the test to proceed as planned. As long as he's healthy, nothing will go wrong," he said plainly.

The Doc peered through his glasses as he turned through papers on the clipboard always clamped in his hand. "But, sir, if he just wakes up in that state and has to…I mean…the other subject is…he could-"

"You should go back to your lab, Doc."

The sharp stare from the man made the old scientist adjust his glasses and nod nervously. "Yessir."

.

.

"_Good morning Jump City. It's 5:00 am on a beautiful Saturday on July 7th. It's currently 65 degrees but there's going to be a high of 75 and sunny all day. Yep, it's going to be a great day today. To get everyone in the…_"

A shot of static blocked out half of what the reporter was going to say but the radio persisted.

"_On the latest news in Jump, today marks the one year anniversary of…_"

Something flicked on and the back of Danny's eyelids turned red. He opened his eyes slowly. The first thing he saw was a pure white light over his head.

"_In later news, we've heard of disturbances over in Jump City's downtown area. A series of gang fights have been taking place under the west-side bridges. Three civilians passing by were killed in the crossfire yester…reports of several muggings have flooded in from the eastern…A woman was raped today just off of Queen Ave…the bus did veer out of control and crash, but luckily no one was hurt. As for your daily traffic report, don't take the 43 Main Road unless you want to be late to work. There was an accident off… hour delays are guaranteed. There was an accident between Millard Street and Dixie Crossing causing a massive traffic jam throughout the city. Workers are moving fast but take the…Moving onto sports, the Rangers were…"_

The static radio kept going with bits and pieces of the report missing because of wavelength interceptions. The sports victories and daily tips to make your day better blurred in Danny's mind until it didn't even sound like English. It was all just meaningless words he'd have to repeat in his head fifty times over to understand.

Squinting, he slowly tried to raise a hand to block the light. His limbs were too heavy. Everything was sore and he felt something singeing his arm. His heavy breathing was drowned out by the sounds of banging cells and electric zaps. Danny had to make an effort to sit upright. His leg felt like a truck had run over it, which had happened once. Shouldn't it be in pain? Burning pain sprouted from Danny's right shoulder as if a thousand hot red knives had just been concentrated and cut into one compact area.

He winced and clutched his arm, but that just made it worse. He had to wait a few moments before the burning cooled and he was left in peace. Wait-the announcer just said it was Saturday in July. He was being transferred on the last Thursday in June. What the hell had happened for the entire week and a half that he was out of it? Danny reached up to his shoulder to see if there was any blood stains. Instead, he was in a pure white shirt. He didn't remember changing into something like this.

There was that man…the one with the glasses…and someone else…Shepherd…Danny had tried to escape and then-he had, he had…no. He couldn't think about that now. He had to concentrate. What had happened? There was nothing, a black void in which nothing happened. He looked down at his surprisingly trouble-free leg. Rolling up a set of white pants, which he did not remember putting on or ever seeing before in his life, he noticed that just above his knee cap, where a bad gash from the pistol should be, there was nothing but a purple bruise. He experimentally tried to kick his leg forward. His leg wouldn't move. There was no response for his next couple of tries. All he was doing was being an idiot that was staring at his knee. What happened there?

Looking around, the first thing he spotted was a sink, and then a metal bowl attached to the wall. There was a lot of white brick. That was the entire room. White bricks everywhere. Oh great, did they put him in the loony bin? This was going to be terrible. He looked down at the floor. It looked like cracked concrete. He looked to the right and next to his cot was a set of metal bars. Prison? This was much worse. What kind of prison was this one? The last one he was in was basically an energy field box with a bed in the middle. If he touched anything but the floor or bed and a nice electric shock knocks you out.

He shuddered at the thought. All he had to do was take things one step at a time. He pushed himself slowly off the bed. The moment his feet touched the floor, he realized he only had a numb recall that there was something underneath him. It was probably just cut off circulation. He tried sliding off the cot and putting his full weight on his legs. Immediately, he collapsed to the hard cement floor and was hardly able to catch himself. "Dammit," he said between his teeth.

He lay there listening to the radio's static elevator music from god-knows-when as he tried to push himself back up. He shifted his weight to his arms, which were in a slightly more stable state, and tried to pull himself up onto the cot. It took a great amount of energy, more than he'd have liked. By the time he stood straight up, he was out of breath. Taking time to recover, he looked over at the bars that were begging to be broken open. The white paint was chipping off in clumps revealing a slightly rusted under coat while pieces of gum stuck under the horizontal strips of iron or whatever they made this stuff out of.

Danny leaned forward to touch the bars next to his cell carefully. He braced himself for the energy field that would send a shock through his system. Instead, there was nothing. His hand moved straight through the iron bars. A small smile crawled onto Danny's lips. It was perfect! What had he done to disserve this? Did it matter? He could easily fade through these bars and leave this place without issue.

Danny tried to use his powers concentrating on simple intangibility. Yet, there wasn't that light feeling or any sort of rush through his entire body. There was no odd sensation to indicate that he was intangible. He tried lightly touching the bars, but his fingers tapped the cold surface. Great, his powers were shot. It was probably from the stupid gunshot. That had been… a week ago? That kind of stuff didn't last a week. He was missing something.

Danny took a look outside of the cell. There was nothing but an empty white hall behind the bars. It was too white. The sight of it suggested someone had bleached the world and this was all that was left. At the end of the long narrow hall was a metal door. He was in a confined hallway with walls that seemed to be closing together with every second.

Danny tried to take a step forward towards the bar but his legs still collapsed on him. His arms hardly caught him. He was just dangling with his legs in an awkward bent position and his knees hovering inches from the ground. It was like his foot had fallen asleep way past the point of having a thousand little needles stab his nerves. There was just that weird heavy sensation that was supposed to fade in a few seconds.

Danny was in a small cell space where he could walk maybe three or four steps with a death grip on the cell bars. It took him what seemed like an eternity to get feeling back at his feet. The cold ground was uncomfortable and grinded against his dragging footsteps. Time passed frustratingly slow as his progress seemed to go at a snail's pace. A single step needed so much delicate attention. It was an agonizingly slow process, but Danny managed to walk slowly from the bars to the cell wall without holding any sort of support after a while.

There was a loud buzz over his head and the cell door swung open with a screech. Danny looked at the open space curiously. They had just opened the cell. In the last prison, the cell door was never open unless there was a guard right next to it and there were those weird ectoplasmic cuffs around his hands. What was going on?

This had to be some kind of a trick. Danny grabbed the bars of the cell just at the opening and lightly placed one foot on the concrete ground outside. Nothing happened. Danny was expecting a shock, a barrier, a force field, anything that would make this a trap. Instead, it was just him and a white hallway. Something was going to go wrong, Danny knew it.

The walls were too white, the cell was too normal and the elevator music bouncing off the walls was too calm! Danny took a cautious step out. His legs didn't give out but walking felt like the most unimaginable task in the world right now. His heart was racing and his mind was buzzing in all directions. Frozen in front of the cell, he waited for something to try to attack him. Something always fazed through the walls and attacked in Amity Park. Danny touched the wall closest to him with one hand still grabbing on the bar. He concentrated on using his intangibility, but his hand simply slid against a smooth white surface.

Danny looked at his hand as he concentrated his energy to that one area. No beam of energy formed. Danny looked hesitantly back at the door. He'd wait until he got his powers back. Right now, he could hardly walk. He'd be an idiot if he went outside of this place without his powers.

Just as he took a step back into his cell, a man's voice interrupted the elevator music. His voice was so static-filled that Danny could hardly understand what he was saying. He enunciated a few times until it was just comprehensible. "Subject Phantom, proceed to the door."

"Subject?" Danny whispered to himself. He was used to being called "Phantom" but "Subject" was usually something you'd call someone on a test trial or just a category in school. Danny looked from the cell to the door at the end of the constricted hallway. Whatever was back there was kept behind a metal door for a reason.

The voice repeated it a few more times and Danny stepped forward. That shut him up. Hesitantly, Danny walked through the narrow hallway. His blue eyes darted from left to right anticipating some kind of ghost to appear. It wouldn't really matter would it? His powers weren't working. Just a few steps in he began to grow more and more paranoid until he found himself panicking at the closed space.

Practically sprinting to the door, Danny touched the cold metal with a sense of relief when he finally arrived. Then, his stomach dropped as it swung open to reveal a weird-looking metal room that would only just fit him. It was some kind of containment box. Danny hesitantly touched the metal sides. No reaction. Seriously, where was the security here? He was the Halfa! Eighteen years old and better at his powers than ever! Okay, that was a little conceded but still! Of course, he had no powers now.

"Subject Phantom, step onto the elevator," said the voice.

"Stop calling me 'Subject'!" Danny called.

"Step onto the elevator," the voice said so loudly it bounced off the walls and he had to cover his ears. It probably was a bad idea to talk back.

Danny hesitantly did as he was told. The metal space rushed up and Danny was blind in the black box. As the doors slid open, a pure white light blinded him. He squinted and held his hand over his eyes. Still seeing spots, the voice came on again. This time, there was less static.

"Subject Phantom, Subject Roth, step out of the elevator." The voice bounced off the walls and floor giving it a hollow feeling.

"Subject Roth"? What was "Subject Roth"? Danny stepped out from the elevator and onto a pure white surface. It was cold as concrete, but smoother beneath the soles of his feet. Another white wall maybe four stories high was dented in a few noticeable places and there were burn marks here or there. Paint peeled off some places. It was scrapped off in others, revealing a metal surface. To his right, at the very top level of this box-of-a-room was a black screen. Behind it, Danny could just see the outlines of figures behind the cover. They were observing him? Observing what?

Danny heard a hissing sound as the elevator retreated into the ground. Danny flinched. He looked back up at the people behind the screen and tried to count them. Their figures were too blurred with the actual panels that he couldn't tell if there were four or ten. Danny could only imagine what they were going to do to him here. It was a giant warehouse painted white and if a jet could fit in here, which it probably could, then they could practically do any sort of weird thing they wanted.

"Subject Phantom, Subject Roth, turn to face each other," said the voice. That time, Danny could have sworn he'd seen one of the shadows move. Maybe he was the one talking. "Turn Phantom," he said a little harsher.

Danny didn't see why he shouldn't obey unless he wanted the volume to go up. He didn't feel like getting shot in the back any time soon. He braced himself to see some hulking guy-in-white with a pistol to his back and ready to fire on him at will. Preparing to run in any other direction to avoid the bullet when it came, Danny took a breath and slowly turned. Nothing could have prepared him for what he did see.

"Sam?" Danny whispered looking at the figure in front of him. No, it wasn't Sam. The girl had the same black hair chopped at her shoulders and the same violet eyes, but she was too short and her expression was too cold. She stood up straight with her arms by her side. Something about her seemed wrong. She had the same starch-white pants and shirt as Danny and she seemed to be around his age, but there was something wrong with the way she looked at him. Discontent and anger was burning in those violet eyes and they were looking straight at him. Her stare on its own was intimidating. Danny wasn't even sure what he had done to disserve it. Looking back at the condition of the warehouse and then back to the short girl, Danny managed to piece together a few things. _Oh no, they don't expect me to-_

"Date: July 7. Place: Testing facility 10. Subjects: Phantom and Roth. Experiment: control and use of powers in versus. Inflicting mortal wounds: optional," the man relayed. "Begin experiment in 3…2…1…." There was a loud buzz overhead that signaled the start. _Shit._

The girl in front of Danny crossed her pale arms and looked up at the observatory. "Why do we have to engage in something so pointless?" she said. Her voice was flat and annoyed.

The girl suddenly yelped in pain and clutched her arm. Breathing heavily, she staggered trying to keep balanced. She looked back up at the black screen with her teeth gritted. Danny looked up himself. All he could see was dark shadows, but this girl looked as if she was staring down a menace. What did they just do to her? She looked so helpless clutching one shoulder with her frail hand as her legs started to shake. It looked like such a hard thing for her to do. Danny actually took a step forward to see if he could help her. Her head whipped around towards Danny with malice in her eyes.

The girl was almost instantly consumed in black energy. Her eyes glowed white as she started to levitate off the ground. Whatever delicateness she had had vanished in that one instant and was replaced with pure intimidation. Danny ran as she formed a large black band of energy in front of her. How come her powers worked and his didn't? How was that remotely fair?

He heard the girl's voice behind him. "Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos!"

"What the-" by the time Danny turned around a large wall of flat black energy slammed straight into him, sending him flying backwards.

Danny saw the incoming floor and instinctively tried to fly. He knew it was pointless. Something was wrong with his powers and he was going to fall to his death! Just a few feet above the ground, he stopped and was hovering with his arms and legs outstretched. He let out a sigh of relief just before he caught the word "Zinthos" behind him. Danny turned to see a shadow of black energy headed towards him. Danny hardly managed to dodge as the shadow smashed into the floor. This place was insane!

Danny concentrated and he saw two rings of light spread across his body shifting him into his ghost form. His powers were back! He wasn't going to question how because they were back! The girl stopped dead in her little chant, surprised. Danny looked from the girl to room where the shadowed figures stood. They watched every move expecting him to fight. This wasn't the 1400s. Gladiators weren't around anymore…maybe it was before that? The point is: this sort of thing is barbaric!

He wasn't going to waste his time here. Flying towards the ground, Danny turned intangible and tried to phase through the floor. But just as he touched the surface, a slight shock sent him backwards. His back was the first thing to hit the ground and it sent a sharp pain through the rest of his body as he skidded to a stop. Great, they had him locked in here.

"I knew it was too good to be true," Danny said bitterly to himself as he picked himself from off the ground.

Before Danny could even stand, black energy surrounded his torso and he was lifted into the air, slowly being crushed. Danny took shallow breaths as the grip tightened. It took him a moment to clear his head and think about turning intangible. Instantly, he faded through the shadow. The girl gasped and looked from her hands to Danny. She gritted her teeth and sent a large whip of black magic in his direction. He kept himself intangible and flew behind the other subject. She whirled around and the black energy around her grew more intense. She let loose shards of black energy as she built them and all that Danny had to do was sit and let them phase through him.

Looking at the girl and the room itself, Danny wasn't even sure he wanted to fight. What's the worst that could happen if he just floated around when she couldn't touch him? They couldn't keep the two of them in this room forever. Then, as if the man on the microphone was reading his thoughts, the speaker voice boomed, "Subject Phatom, participate."

"Or what?" Danny yelled, now angered. "What's goin-"

A shock from his shoulder made his body turn back to its normal density and he began to plummet to the ground. The agonizing pain of the shock was drained by hitting the hard surface of the floor yet again. Danny definitely tasted blood in his mouth. Something was probably broken or at least twisted. Alright, he got the picture. Fight and win, everyone goes home. Don't fight means corrective shock.

Danny reluctantly powered a beam of energy in his hand. The girl was already building up her own burst of black energy. "Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos." Danny released his beam of green ghostly energy with some reluctance. He expected the green energy to fade through her black wall but instead, the two powers clashed in the air and now Danny could feel strain as a force pushed against him. The two of them had to fight. They had to push against each other and hope that their energy was more powerful than the other's. They had to think of ways to outsmart each other in between. Danny found himself planning his next move and he knew she was doing the same. He wasn't even doing it on purpose. It was just instinct. Danny glanced over at the black observatory. They were watching all of this like it was a show!

Danny's loss in concentration lost him the miniature battle and he was knocked hard into a flat surface that was as hard as a brick wall. He was flung backwards and too dazed to concentrate on flying. He was about to crash into a wall when black energy surrounded him again and dragged him back to the girl.

She wasn't a ghost. She used the wrong type of energy. Most ghosts had at least the same wavelength of green energy. The thing wrapped around him was nothing like that. This energy was cold, harsh, and he may be crazy but it felt angry. Subject Roth's eyes glowed white and her hair flew in all directions. Overall, she was a menacing sight. If only he knew exactly what she was. She couldn't be a human, but what'd that leave. Some freak experiment gone wrong? What was she? "What are you?" the girl sneered tightening her hold on him.

"Very confused," Danny said turning intangible and fading from her grasp. Danny fired a beam of green energy. She was thrown back with a grunt and hit the other wall of the warehouse. The sound of creaking metal echoed through the room. Danny was concerned that a girl as small as her couldn't even take that hit as she slumped against the wall for a moment. Danny flew over, becoming tangible again, and touched the girl on the shoulder. He was about to see if she was okay when four red eyes suddenly opened filled with anger and hatred. That wasn't human!

Her hand snatched up and grabbed a choke hold around Danny's neck. There was no time to think. Instinct made him claw back at the rough grip to fight for a few breaths of air. Black energy radiated from her and all around her arm until it completely consumed him. Danny had to get out of here. He had to get away from the four-eyed creature. He tried to turn intangible but this time, nothing happened. He focused his energy on his hands but there was no green beam of light. Danny could feel the sensation inside of him that something should be happening but there was no effect. His powers were gone! Did she do that? How? Did the guys from the observatory do it? Looking at the black energy that was consuming him, he figured out what the problem pretty quickly.

The four-eyed girl was snarling as her hold on him tightened more and more. Danny realized he could still claw at her hand and struggle. That ment he could move. He threw his leg forward with everything he had and his foot connected with the girl's stomach. She gasped and her hold loosened. That's all Danny needed to escape. He jumped from her grasp and the black energy. She had figured out how to hurt him and he knew how to affect her. Danny jumped into the air and the girl followed.

Now, it's a contest of flight. The girl's attacks of black energy are powerful but they were in short bursts. They're usually just as inaccurate as his ghost beam at this high speed. The girl was just as fast but not as nimble as Danny. Whenever she released a wall of black energy, it usually missed. The one time that it did graze across his arm, Danny realized the energy was spreading around him like water on rock. It was a different sort of attack from the other ones. Instead of a flat board of energy that Danny could avoid, this one was finding a way to overwhelm and consume him. The only reason that one didn't get him was because he burnt it off with his ghost beam first.

The girl was firing an entire barrage at him. Every single one that missed hit and hit against the ground created a temporary black stain until half of the warehouse was spotted. She wasn't used to this kind of attack. As Danny navigated through the air, he always tried to find a way to circle around the girl and shoot a beam of energy in her back. She was always one step ahead of him as she navigated through the air. Whenever he tried to double-back she was there, angry as ever. She was good at dodging too. Whenever Danny tried to confuse her by throwing a beam of green energy behind him, she evaded without losing speed or momentum. The few times it did hit her just fueled her red eyes even more and she was flying faster, with a vengeance.

Then something happened. She said those three words. "Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos." In a blur, Danny looked back and could only just see an odd energy forming around the girl. It turned into a bubble around her and expanded out. Danny didn't know if that thing could touch him or not, but he didn't want to find out. He flew faster as the black energy expanded further. Danny realized that he wasn't going to be able to out fly it and turned to face the thing. He formed a green shield of energy instead of turning intangible. When the black bubble touched his small green concentration of energy, it ruptured and sent Danny flying backwards. Before he had time to scream a firm hand clutched his throat. Something hit hard against his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. A punch lands on Danny's jaw. He's sent flying across the room and skidding to a stop on the rough floor. The taste of blood filled his mouth and he has to spit the disgusting metallic substance out. His vision is blurred and when he pushes himself onto his hands and knees, he could see the girl flying forward with that fierce expression.

Danny concentrated last minute. He sent a burst of green energy towards the girl shouting, "Get back!"

It knocked her square in the chest and she collapsed from the sky onto the floor with a thud. Danny falls back onto four limbs. His arms shakily supported him. He was so tired. Looking up, Danny can just see the blur of her red-eyes. Black energy was pulsating around her. As she walked metal squealed and screeched as black energy mangled and twisted it. She surrounded one board in black energy, it twisted and dented, but it didn't come off. This girl was going to kill him if that's what it took to satisfy the people up there. Danny knew it'd take a lot of energy, but he's almost out of options here. He opens his mouth as if to scream and unleashed his ghostly wail.

The girl is thrown back against the wall on the opposite side of the room. Before Danny could stop himself, a shock on his arm did. The pain from his shoulder makes him cry out. Two white rings of energy flickered in front of him. When he raised a hand, his hazmat suit was gone and he was looking at his blurred bare hand. His vision was darkening. Danny hadn't gotten completely exhausted after that trick for years, maybe tired, but he always kept his ghost form. Even though he was tired to begin with, it shouldn't have done that! Danny had taken on worse ghosts before. He knew it wasn't the ghostly wail that did it. He had years to master it! Maybe the shock sent him into this form.

He felt weak again. No. He was not going to pass out! He refused! He wasn't going to miss something important all over again! No! He needed to stay awake! His vision was failing and he could hear his shaken breathing. The intercom over Danny's head crackled and the man said, "Subject Roth vs. Subject Phantom. Time: twenty minutes, thirty-two seconds. Injuries: recoverable. Result: inconclusive."

Danny was exhausted. He'd admit it. But whatever this was, it was over. He leaned back staring at the white ceiling. His eyelids were heavy, but he wasn't going to let them win. He was going to stay awake.

After a long while, Danny heard a hissing sound and shifted his head to his right. In the direction of the sound, he saw two square metal pods, the kind that Danny had been lifted into this place with. From each pod, a person appeared. Completely dressed in a white jumpsuit with a gas mask covering their faces, they looked anything other than human. They were unarmed and walking slowly, with purpose. Their breathing sounded more labored than Danny's as one of them moved towards him and another in the opposite direction towards the girl.

Danny heard the intercom voice crackle, "Subjects Roth and Phantom are dismissed from the testing facility. Return to cells in the mad house."

_ Mad house? Like for psychotic people?_ Danny thought. _Why would I be sent to a mad house?_ His eyes flicked up towards the man in the gas mask. He was holding a cloth and shoved it in Danny's nose. Danny struggled for a few moments trying to push the cloth away, but his rapid breathing only quickened the process. In moments everything turned black.

.

.

"_Good morning Jump City. It's 5:00 am on a beautiful Sunday on July 8th. It's currently 55 degrees and we're expecting showers later today. Pack the umbrellas and don't wear those nice shoes. If you're going jogging we suggest using that gym membership card you probably abandoned..." _

Static muffled the guy's words. This was all so weirdly familiar.

"_Jump City is looking a little gloomy today, but we've got plenty of songs to keep you going. Before that, we'd like to take some time to give you the daily report. Recently, a man in a top hat has been seen robbing most of Jump City's banks. Police have tried to detain the criminal, but he has yet again managed to evade…_" Static cut in.

Danny's eyes burst open and all he saw was pure darkness. This was too familiar. He couldn't be in that facility could he? Was that all a dream? No. It was Sunday. What would have happened on Saturday? Could he walk without falling like a ragdoll?

Danny sat up without any trouble. When he slid to his feet, he was perfectly balanced. He walked a few experimental steps before allowing himself to believe it. Suddenly, lights flicked on over Danny's head and outside. The heavy sound of a switch was followed by the sound of groans and murmurs. People were here!

Danny had to blink a few times before his vision adjusted. He was facing a white brick wall. Looking around, he realized he was in a cell. It looked the exactly same as the last one he had been in. Looking out of the metal bars, Danny prayed he wouldn't see a white hallway again. He didn't. Instead, there was a brick wall some distance away and a metal railing blocking most of it. To his left and right was a line of metal bars and white cells. Some were empty while others had sleeping figures hiding beneath the sheets. Bars. Cells. Prison. He was in a prison.

"_Police_ _have managed to arrest leaders of the gang fights that have been taking place under the west-side bridges. When asked to comment the four teenagers said they'd thought the law had run off. Ain't that entertaining, folks? It's also been reported that…or your daily traffic report. The expressway is jammed again with the morning rush hour. We predict at least hour delays if you're not already on the road. There are no accidents this morning so keep your fingers crossed and hope everyone is a sober driver at 5 am…"_

Danny was perplexed. Had he dreamed up yesterday? How did he get here? Where was he? Well prison obviously, but what prison? What was going on? He was asking that last question to himself too often. He looked at his hand as he tried to turn intangible. There was no sensation. He touched a wall and nothing happened. He tried invisibility, same result. Great, his powers were shot again. They probably gave him a "corrective shock" before putting him in this place. There was a loud buzz over his head that interrupted the radio. The door to his cell swung open and the sound of that squeaky metal echoed a hundred times over. There was a clamor of footsteps and people filtered down metal steps on the opposite wall. Danny was still trying to figure out what was happening. He waited until the movement died down before leaving his own cell. Leaning against the railing, he looked down towards a hum of noise.

Just below his view on the balcony was a series of cafeteria tables with tons of people, male and female, in clusters talking quietly while guards in a standard blue uniform paraded up and down the bars that formed a perimeter. Every prisoner was released but Danny couldn't spot a single ghost in the mob. What kind of ghost prison didn't have any ghost? It had to be a ghost prison. They'd never put him in a regular prison unless they were insane. Then again, there was no energy field. And hadn't he…no. That all must have been some weird dream. That girl couldn't be real. She was just a figment of his imagination. A freaky villain concept coupled with an image of Sam.

Danny looked up to see yet another balcony over his head. Straight ahead was a staircase that looked a lot like a fire escape. From what Danny could tell, it was probably four floors total. People pushed past him as they crowded into the vast space on the first floor. He could hear a few people's steps on the floor above him, but no one was talking over a hushed whisper.

Instead of walking around and trying to find a way to escape, he had time to confirm that it obviously was a prison judging by the uniform each prisoner wore. No matter how large or misshapen -and some of these guys had eight legs- they all had white pants and a white shirt fit to their size. No tears, no stains, just pure white. Danny could see a group of men playing cards in the corner. They gambled cigarettes along with money from probably six different countries, judging by the different colors and sizes. A cluster of girls sat in one gym table laughing as they watched some green kid trip over his feet when running from something. Danny didn't bother to see what or who it was. Another group of boys just below him were fighting over an issue of playboy, greedily grabbing at the pages to get a better view. There was always the one guy trying to jump over everyone's shoulders to get a glimpse.

Overall, the place seemed weirdly normal. Not to say that dudes with too many limbs, a green guy, and a woman with horns coming from her head wasn't weird, but these people just looked like freaks. For all Danny knew, it could be a birth defect or some kind of weird way for them to express themselves. Some weird documentary Sam made him watch was going on and on about some chick that got horns implanted into her skull for the hell of it. The girl in the corner of the room could have been her. They weren't using any powers. They weren't plotting to escape. They were walking everywhere they went and talking like regular people. No bad punch lines and quick one-liners most heroes, such as Danny (to his regret), usually talked in.

Someone whistled and the prisoners began to file into a single line.

Seriously, what was this place?

Suddenly, another guard grabbed him by the shoulder and started pushing him forward. "Hey!"

"Get down there!" said the guard shoving him. When Danny looked around, he noticed he was the only one on the balcony.

What had happened? The guard kept shoving him and making Danny stumble forward through the people until he was right were the guard wanted him. Apparently it was common because by the time the guard pushed him to the first floor, he heard a few people mutter, "Newcomer." Most people just laughed though. Great, he thought he had gotten out of high school but it was coming back to haunt him.

As Danny walked slowly in the back of the line, a guard kept him on a forward march. They walked down two halls before they came to a large food line. Danny felt like he was in a factory station. One section gave him a tray, move down. The second threw a block of some kind of food on the greasy tray, move down. The last dropped a bottle of water on his tray, get out of the line. Danny made it a point to sit as far away from everyone else as he possibly could, down the meal and try to figure this out.

**I hope you at least get a sliver of the picture from this. I suppose if you have any questions I can answer without giving much away. Let me know what you think about this chapter. Reviews really do give motivation. Oh and happy summer to everyone!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I can't believe how much angst is in this chapter and creepiness fades because it's figure out WTF is going on time. At least we got things rolling. Finally, I can get this plot rolling! And yes, yes we do go back in time in this chapter to catch up with Danny's POV. Oh, and the Titans use their real names with each other, but not with other people. Sorry for not responding with PM before.**

**Thank you VampireFrootloops Rule, book phan44, and Riqis Inna Sunja for reviewing.**

Chapter 2: Titans

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About halfway through the day, Danny had a great system going. He had managed to stay quiet, stay unknown, and stay isolated for maybe a good hour. He still couldn't figure out much more about this place from looking around than it being a prison. But, something was wrong with this place, it didn't seem remotely the same. Maybe the static 20s music that echoed through the cells was getting to him. He had been in a ghost prison for a while, but there he wasn't ever let out of his cell and the only "social visit" was from the Guys in White when they felt like having interrogation sessions or when they had a social hour and he was dodging ghost he had made enemies with left and right. Danny cringed at the memory. It was funny thinking of this prison in particular as weird following that. Even when he was fourteen he was in a ghost jail made _by_ ghosts, but that wasn't nearly as bad. Somehow he preferred Walker's jail to this. He did only spent maybe half an hour in there before figuring out how to break out, but still. At least, no one he knew was here. With no one he knew being here, that ment no one could possibly hate him already.

And then, his luck ran out and he found himself getting sized up by a guy who had to at least be seven feet tall and growing red hair like a yeti only after asking what this place was. There was nothing but muscle on this dude, and that wasn't a pretty site when it was looming over Danny in an extremely unfriendly fashion. "Mammoth doesn't like newcomers wandering around without paying the fee." To top it all off, he talked in third person. It _was_ just like high school all over again. Whoop-de-do.

"Fee? What's going on here?" Danny asked already lost enough as it was. Danny wished he could turn invisible, intangible, summon ghost energy, super strength, anything that was useful, but no. His powers had to be shot while this guy was all steroids with no need for powers. Danny of course knew how to fight, but it was easy to tell that for now, that was out of the question. How did he used to handle this in high school when he had no advantage? Well, there was no locker for him to be shut in.

"All your goods for the week, dumbo. You didn't meet the terms yet," said a high-pitched squeaky voice behind the giant. "That means you owe us any newcomer perks in your cell including, your sheets, the meds, the radio control, the schedule, any money you got, and all other requirements."

Danny thought back to his cell. He hadn't really looked around. He had looked at it, but he didn't go through everything. He didn't see any meds or a radio control, and what was a schedule? Well, it was pretty important to these guys. Apparently Danny had waited too long to say anything, because Danny heard the snap of someone's fingers.

"Mammoth," said the high-pitched voice.

The giant guy cracked his knuckles suggestively and a cynical grin spread across his face. A big tough guy just like Skulker and Danny had nothing to use in defense. Danny dodged Mammoth's first hulking hand and then his other. At least his reflexes were still of some use as he moved. "Listen…would you just…Can I say something…I am trying to tell you…"

He danced around every jab that Mammoth tried to land. But, when Danny actually tried to get out of this fight and took a few steps back, he was grabbed by his right arm and hoisted up off the floor. Mammoth tightened his grip on Danny's hand. Agonizing pain sprouted from the experience. Danny couldn't focus. He squirmed but no thoughts of kicking or punching came across his mind.

"Listen here, newbie. This is how things work around here," the voice said. Bones were grinding together and bending where they shouldn't in Danny's hand. He couldn't think about anything other than twisted discomfort. "We provide our service; you pay up with the goods. You sit there looking at us with that stupid expression on your face instead of a pleasant 'yes'; we can do this to you."

Danny heard the crack before he felt the snap. He was dropped to the floor and wreathed in pain on the cold ground, cradling his hand in his chest. What the hell was going on? He had to get up and get out. It wasn't like he had a chance against this guy without powers. Well, he wasn't going to lay on the ground. He set his teeth and pushed off the cold floor.

"Look, I don't want any trouble," Danny said calmly.

"Too late for that," said Mammoth in a voice that was too deep to be fully human as he drew back his fist.

"Dude, seriously!" Danny was starting to get angry. "Just tell me what's going on and I'll be-"

"Shut up!"

Danny was ready to leap lamely out of the way as the fist started towards him when some guy stepped in front of him and caught the blow. That was pretty surprising considering how small the guy was to begin with. He was a tall guy, sure, but skinny. Basically, this kid was a string bean compared to Mammoth.

"He said he didn't want any trouble," he said in a slightly cracked voice.

"What do you care, snot-picker?"

"Get outta here, Gizmo. This isn't just your place."

"It's not yours either. Come on Mammoth."

Danny had to blink a few times as he watched the giant boulder of a guy turn around because some skinny green kid told him off. How did that just happen? The weirdest part was that there was some bald kid on Mammoth's back that glared menacingly towards them. If Danny saw one more thing today that made no sense, his head was going to explode!

The guy turned around with his chest puffed up looking rather proud of himself. It was kind of the same expression Tucker had whenever he got a new techno-gadget. This kid's smirk was interrupted by a single tooth from his bottom lip. The only word Danny could think of to really describe him was "green." Green hair, green eyes, green skin: an entire matching set. This guy was probably in his late teens. Danny was still trying to get past the fact that he was all green and not a ghost. He wasn't hovering, glowing, or saying some overly dramatic speech. He couldn't be a ghost. Still, it was a weird sight to see a green guy who was still alive.

"Uh…thanks?" Danny said.

"Don't worry about them. They're real fast to get to demands. They want first dibs on everyone around here," he said jabbing his thumb in the Mammoth's direction.

"First dibs? What are you talking about?" Danny asked. He winced when he instinctively moved his hand. He said between his teeth, trying to distract himself from the pain. "What kind of prison is this?"

"Do you know anything?"

Frustration was seething through Danny. It wasn't like someone gave him a pamphlet or even a briefing! No, it was just him by himself. How was he supposed to know anything? It's not like he was a mind reader and the first question this guy has is if he knew anything? OF. COURSE. NOT. "No! No, I don't! I wake up to a creepy radio after having the weirdest dream in my life! Then I'm listening to this annoying music all day! I get approached by some dude I've never met in my life demanding whatever! On top of everything, my hand's busted! Will someone please explain to me what is going on without any other comments?"

Danny was expecting the guy to be surprised, angry, weirded out, or have some sort of reaction to him lashing out in a burst of rage. The only reaction that came from him was a slight laugh and him saying with a grin, "Not your best day, huh?"

"Not at all!" Danny said not caring if that was ment to be humor.

The green guy started walking straight past Danny. "Come on," he said.

Danny turned around and suddenly was aware of how many people had dropped what they were doing to stare at him. When he glared back menacingly, they all turned back to their own business. The way Danny was feeling right now, he was probably ready to wring someone's neck…no. No, that was an expression. Danny blinked away a terrible feeling that was starting to wrench its way into his system. _Just an expression. Just an expression._ He had to relax. Take a breath. Better. Figure this out calmly and sanely. Maybe he'd be out of here just as fast as the last time.

"You want your hand fixed or what?" the green guy said a few feet away by the steps. The pain in Danny's hand instantly answered for him. Danny tried to trigger something in his system to calm the burning pain. Ice powers were a negative on chilling his skin as he touched his injured hand. Advanced healing…he wasn't even sure if he had that. The kid didn't look like a medic, but Danny wasn't going to question a guy that just saved him from being pummeled. But, when something was too good to be true, it usually was. Danny scanned the kid. The clothes were too bulky to really tell if he had some sort of weapon on him. Pain was rushing through Danny's hand and quickly clouding clear judgment. _Keep a guard on, but follow, _he told himself. He followed slowly with his hand still stinging in pain. "The name's Beast Boy." _Beast Boy? Isn't that a superhero name or something? _"You are?" he asked starting to walk up the steps up to the balcony. To lie or not to lie. That was the question. He'd probably figure it out anyway. Why start on shaky ground? Already, Danny was looking behind him to make sure this guy was alone. Shaky enough as it was.

"Danny."

"No title or something?"

"What do you mean by title?"

"Hero title."

Danny shook his head. _Hero title? Okay so he expected me to have one. I'm in a prison for people who think they're heroes. Well that's stupid. Prison for heroes sounds a little better. Prison for heroes? That made no sense. Villains. Villain prison made more sense._

"No. But, I assume you are. So, what are you doing in a prison?"

"Well, technically the official name is "Jump City Correctional Testing Facility" founded by some guy that I can't remember. Robin's the one that does most of the research. I just sit back and wait for the road trip. But, for all intensive purposes, yeah, a prison."

"Do you have a power or something?" Danny asked trying to confirm what he already was piecing together.

"It's a requirement, isn't it?" Beast Boy laughed lightly. "I think it's almost a good thing we can't use powers here. If that happened, it wouldn't be pretty. Mammoth would have definitely pummeled me. I don't really know what you can do, so I can't say the same."

"Can't?" Danny was suddenly thrown into a panic. They took away his powers? How was that possible? Wait- over reaction. He just had his powers yesterday. _Don't make assumptions and freak yourself out. _Danny stumbled desperately with his words, "W-what do you mean by can't use powers?"

"The chip in your shoulder," Beast Boy touched a hand to his right shoulder. Danny mimicked and felt the place that was burning when he had woken up. That's what that thing was. A chip? "I don't know how they do it, but it kind of shuts down everyone's powers. Right now, you're a regular teenager. I'm not really sure why I'm still green since I thought that came with the package, but no one can do anything here unless those guys," he pointed at the brick wall on the other side of the balcony. Danny didn't see anyone or anything besides a brick wall. "want you to. They can even control which ones you're allowed to use in the testing rooms - you know what the testing rooms are, right?"

"No," Danny said.

"Oh…um…basically, there's this doctor who's all like 'experiment!' and we're all like 'no way' and he's all like 'zap!' so most people are all like 'experiment!' and then next thing you know someone gets majorly wounded and dumped in here or just killed."

"Wait…experiment?" _Begin experiment in 3…2…1…_ "You mean, when they put me in that warehouse and made me fight some girl? That wasn't a dream? That was normal? They actually made me fight in a box!" Danny was completely outraged. The Halfa! Known through the ghost and human world as someone to be reckoned with fought a demon Sam-look-alike…in a box…while being monitored…and probably lost…

"Sorry dude, they make us do that…often," he scratched the side of his head not looking towards Danny when he said that. _Often? No. no. no. no. no. Not going through that again! I'll be lucky if I never see the evil demon girl again in my life! I am not going to fight another one of those! _"It's kind of why no one really likes anybody around here. We all have to deal with some crazy science guy in the black room. And, it's not like this place in general provides a lot. Most people steal from newcomers pretty often since you guys come fresh out of the scientist's testing table," Beast Boy said. He looked down at the circle of people. Danny caught the pitiful look he gave them like they were poor souls lost and he knew a way out. Way too good to be true.

"Why'd you help me then?"

" 'Cuz it's not like you ever did anything to them. I may be in this place, but I still have a sense of justice," he relayed proudly. "Hasn't really worked out very often for me, though, hehe. I guess it's mostly my fault," Beast Boy rubbed the back of his neck. Nervous tick.

Danny just noticed a fresh scar on the back Beast Boy's hand that ran from the base of the pinky down past his wrist. It could make anyone wince wondering what could have caused that.

.

.

"_Good morning Jump City. It's 5:00 am on a beautiful Sunday on July 8__th__. It's currently 55 degrees and we're expecting showers later today. Pack the umbrellas and don't wear those nice shoes. If you're going jogging we suggest using that gym membership card you probably abandoned..." _

Static muffled the announcer's words. Bright light was dimmed behind sunglasses as the main power was switched on for the day.

"_Jump City is looking a little gloomy today, but we've got plenty of songs to keep you going. Before that, we'd like to take some time to give you the daily report. Recently, a man in a top hat has been seen robbing most of Jump City's banks. Police have tried to detain the criminal, but he has yet again managed to evade…_"

Static cut in. The bars of the hundreds of cells screeched open in a horrifyingly loud moan. The shuffle of footsteps passed by in the same pitiable beat they always moved in. The melancholy murmur of gossip made its way into the cells. The irritating buzz of a radiator started to pick up.

"_Police_ _have managed to arrest leaders of the gang fights that have been taking place under the west-side bridges. When asked to comment the four teenagers said they'd thought the law had run off. Ain't that entertaining, folks?_"

Agitation burned through his system. They hadn't run off. They hadn't done this on purpose!

_"It's also been reported that…or your daily traffic report. The expressway is jammed again with the morning rush hour. We predict at least hour delays if you're not already on the road. There are no accidents this morning so keep your fingers crossed and hope everyone is a sober driver at 5 am…"_

"Can't they leave that thing off for one day?" asked the former Robin slowly moving up from his cot. He didn't make it more than halfway before the pain was too great.

"Afraid not," said the teenage empath at the door of his jail cell.

Dick tried to push himself to a sitting position to talk a little clearer. There was no success. "It's like they're driven to torture me with those stupid reports."

"They haven't tortured us enough already?"

"I can deal with being a stupid 'control subject,'" Dick said trying to sit up. This time the empath made him stay down. "What I can't deal with is hearing how our city gets worse and worse every day while we're stuck here doing nothing but stupid test for this doctor's sick game. Jump City's not going to last long once word gets out that we've been gone four months."

"It already has," Raven said walking towards the cot. Four months in this place, and every day, on the radio, they heard every crime report of every villain they had thought they'd driven away. Every day the radio had more news on more crimes followed by a cheesy commercial or sports news. Of course the police had to be completely incompetent and leave Dick grinding his teeth as he listened to each injustice that had been easily carried out. Raven lifted his shirt slightly to see the purple, black and yellow bruises and minor cuts scattered along his chest and stomach. Raven winced as she dropped his shirt back. He was hurt, but not hurt enough for the physicians to bother. At least, that meant Dick had no internal damage. "Who'd you face-off this time?"

"Mammoth," Dick said bitterly. Raven sat down on the floor with a book in her hand. Her little 'reward' for winning a fight once. She probably read it three times. The plot was predictable, descriptions were vague, the characters were flat, and the circumstances were ridiculous. The only reason she kept re-reading it was to stay sane. "I don't see what the doc. has to learn by making people fight against one another. There's no logical explanation for why I'm here, either. Everyone else has powers but me, and I think I've been through the most fights. We have to find out who's behind all of this."

"That's how we got here in the first place," Raven said allowing a shred of annoyance to line her tone.

"Have you seen Kory yet?" he asked suddenly. Raven shook her head. "Dammit. Do you think she's still mad?"

Raven didn't say anything. There was nothing to say that would be remotely comforting. All Dick needed was a lie to fix the contorted expression on his face. But, then learning the truth would make it worse. She repeated her chant quietly as she tried to calm her sudden emotion down, "Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos. Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos. Azarath. Metrion. Zinth-"

"You two, out of the cell!" one of the guards said.

Raven flashed her eyes open glaring at the guard, but she dared not disobey him. Slowly, she rose and walked out of the cell.

"You too," the guard banged a few more times on the cell door.

"He's recuperating," Raven said.

"I don't give a damn. Take your friend out of there."

Raven learned how to let things go early on in life, if she didn't she wouldn't be able to keep control of the delicate balance of emotions she had inside of her. Taking in a breath, she ignored the guard and helped Dick to his feet with every wince of pain. Dick was a tough guy that hardly ever acknowledged when was in pain. For him to wince ment it was pretty bad. It probably didn't help that Raven was at least half a foot shorter than Dick. He and all the other Titians had shot up and she had pretty much remained the same height, so she wasn't a great support system. Garfield was usually the one to lug him around. The guard was impatient and kept banging on the cell door.

Dick wasn't as patient as Raven and grabbed the stick he kept banging as he passed it. "We're out," he snarled.

The guard cringed and slowly lifted his club away as if it were a useless rag. For dignity's sake, he cleared his throat and moved to the next cell. Raven looked down at the floor level. Mammoth was picking out some kid in the crowd. Raven could sense intimidation all the way from up here from the people around Mammoth. Something was going to go wrong. It didn't take very long to get to the bottom level. There, Garfield finally emerged from the crowd. Raven passed Dick to him, figuring he was a better support. Gar and Kory were too social in this place. Kory was somewhere, but most people got lost in the crowd as guards made them go in single file.

They flinched as food was slapped onto their plates in the routine rhythm. The same humdrum…mush. It didn't even have a taste and the only one who seemed to think it was good was Starfire. Dick couldn't stop looking around for her as they left the bottom floor and ate quietly at their own worn table for the scheduled half hour. There were so many heroes and villains here. Somehow, in the mess, both sides had begun to mix for survival purposes. The former Jinx and Kid Flash were a close pairing that hardly interacted with anyone else. Former Aquaman, Speedy, and Bumblebee were never in the same area as one another. All three former heroes were bruised and battered keeping themselves at a good distance. Dick had never seen them closer than a forty yard radius of each other. Former Mas y Menos were the only ones that had stuck together. That was more out of requirement than anything else.

Villains, who had years to cope with living in a place like this, were just as broken. Teams wouldn't look at each other, save former Gizmo and Mammoth. Even they had an underlying agreement and were on edge for turning against one another. There were villains from far out of Jump City that were put here. The former Robin had only faced one or two of them. A woman with scales for skin was faster, stronger, and more flexible than an average human. On top of all of that, she was great with mind tricks. She and a few other girls had formed their own group which was conspicuously avoided. Garfield had a hard time recently when his former team, the Doom Patrol, was stationed in here. Things crumbled in the same pattern they always did. Stick together for a few days, then people start going through "experiments" and when you're unlucky enough, you fight against someone you care about. After that…nothing's the same. That happened to Garfield and Rita. After that and a few more fights between members of the Doom Patrol, everyone stopped talking out of shame in less than a week and formed circles with people they hadn't had to hurt yet. It was almost like the doctor in charge of all these tests made a point to have teams separate.

It was a miracle that Dick and the rest of the team had managed to at least stay on shaky terms with one another. Raven took it hardest. Although her powers were locked inside of her, years of practice had made it easy for her to spot the tiniest of emotions, even without empath abilities. She could tell exactly how ashamed they were of themselves. Shame. That was the main thing that people had to deal with here. It was an easy breaker. If you're ashamed of yourself, what's the point in making life better? You're helping a person who doesn't deserve it. Who would have thought so much of that could happen in a few months?

Garfield was the only one of the group to keep his cheery demeanor. Even Kory had flipped a switch on the bad days. Of course, the small victories were still worth celebrating to her. Getting fresh sheets, seeing everyone unharmed, getting their supply pack for the week, and basically anything that included provisions was worthy of her smile. But, she hadn't talked to Dick for three days after she had to fight him. They knew she was around though. She had inevitably won. When Dick was patched up and sent out yesterday, Kory had made it known that she was alive to the team, but still had an unfamiliar gloom on her face. This wasn't exactly a place where you could go on living unchanged.

The bell rang indicating it was the end of breakfast and they had half an hour of free time. Garfield walked Dick up to his cell and started going through a metal box every cell had with basic supplies. They gave more stuff to new people, but after a week even something as minor as toothpaste was a hard thing to come by. Dick, unfortunately took most of the beatings. He and Gizmo were "control subjects" and they never came out of a fight unscathed.

"Dude, where's your first aid kit?" Garfield asked going through the box. All he could find was a few scraps of paper with scribbled notes, a rough map of the prison that wasn't providing any useful or unknown information, a worn and blunt file that was useless now, and all the standard stuff that was actually given to them: toiletries, toothpaste, dental floss, what have you. Hair gel was not included so the team was getting used to seeing their leader without the spiky jet-black hair. Instead it just fell around his eyes, which were always covered by those cheap sunglasses. One of the standard things in the box should have been a first aid kit, but there was none. They used to search his cell every day and those paper scraps were taken just as fast as a file. But, since the team had kept a low profile, none of the guards were nearly as strict.

"Used it all up," Dick said.

"Dude, we only get that thing once a month," Garfield said with annoyance obviously in his tone. He caught the glare from Raven and instantly lowered his eyes. "Never mind. Listen, I'm going to get my assignment before that place gets crowded. Get better," Garfield said leaving the cell.

"Have you heard anything about Victor?" the former Robin asked before Garfield was out of earshot. Their robotic friend had gone missing four days ago and there wasn't a single word of him since. Whenever someone was gone longer than a day, it either ment that they were hurt badly in an experiment and were being fixed up in the official medical rooms. But, more often than not, it ment there was a body and it sure as hell wasn't going to stop off here.

Garfield visibly tensed and said with bitter distaste, "No." He walked so fast he was practically jogging to the bottom of the steps.

Raven looked over at Dick who seemed completely unaware, or uncaring about Garfield's reaction. Being Vic's best friend, Garfield took his disappearance hardest. Raven knew they were able to keep it that way in here since there was never a fight scheduled between the two of them. "Would you like to ask him if he's seen a dead puppy while you're at it?" Raven asked with bitterness running through her system.

"It was just a question," Dick said.

Raven knew it was. She was on edge today, mostly from coming back from a fight against a demon boy. There was so much energy she had to invest in making fields of energy and that exhaustion carried over to this morning. "Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos," she said under her breath, trying to calm herself down. She was never this tense, but that creature almost got the better of her. What if that demon boy had killed her? He could have easily done so. She'd be lucky if she never saw him again.

She stood and announced quietly, "I'll get what I have."

It was tedious walking four floors up to her cell and back down with the black bag. It was usually only a few aspirin pills, bandages, and then some. Nothing sharp or metal. If anyone ever felt suicidal, they could give it a shot, but most of the time people found life more precious than anything.

As Raven started to at least clean up the cuts and patch up Dick the best she could, he started to explain himself halfway through.

"I just need to know the facts," Dick said. "Victor's been missing for four days. Kory's been gone ever since - she's been gone. You at least came back unscathed. Gar is doing fine as usual." Raven wasn't so sure about that. "This place is directed by Doctor Hillsberg. There are approximately six hundred guards working in total. 932 prisoners have to be kept under surveillance. Each paycheck comes from the doctor. There's no clear record of how many actual scientists are here, but that has to be another fifty-grand at least. Hillsberg only works here and has a few investments in the stock market, nothing that could support this kind of place. There are three buildings here and the wall. Our cells have to cost at least a hundred grand. The testing rooms even more. The service building maybe fifty grand to get it started. Metal shops aren't that expensive these days. If they're funding the supply warehouse just outside the wall, that's another fifty. It's all funded by someone's personal account, but we still don't know who that is. We have only thirty minutes a day where we could possibly go missing. In that time we've hardly gotten a number or a first name. If we want to-"

"Stop," Raven snapped. Her voice was uncharacteristically tense. She instantly dropped what she was doing and stood still for a moment. "I think we have more problems than a headcount and figuring out who's in charge."

Raven never liked to tell people about her own issues. Primary reason for that were the emotions involved, but now her emotions were causing a problem for her despite that. Anger was a particular nuisance and an eventual danger. Victor was always struggling to keep himself breathing since, in order to keep him "at human level," they found a way to rig his circuits and take away power from his weapons and strength, draining a few major functions in the process. Kory was still trying to get used to her weight and her dismal strength. Garfield wasn't always able to stand being human and locking away animals inside of him. Everyone was trying to find a way to cope with the limited time they had with their powers. It was like breaking off an addiction, interrupting a way of life. Quickly, that cut off made the testing rooms hallow. All of the prisoners had to adjust and try to gain control of their new limits. All except for Dick.

"Done," she said between her teeth.

"Raven," Dick said straightening his posture a little. He never took off his sunglasses, but Raven could from other ticks Dick had that he was frustrated too. The muscles in his jaw working, his tighter hold on the cot, the sudden warning laced in his tone. In a flash all of that disappeared with a sigh and a shake of the head, "What else are we supposed to think about?"

Raven shook her head. She stood up and looked over at the camera that was monitoring their every movement. There was one in almost every cell. Raven stared at it for a long while as the black screen shifted ever so slightly. It wasn't like the radio was bad enough. They couldn't give anyone a single second of privacy. She packed up the kit and sat down on the floor again. Raven played with the pages of the book in her hand as she watched the camera's black screen stare her down like a hawk. There was a sudden shout that caught Raven's attention. She moved towards the balcony and saw Mammoth holding some kid up by one hand. Mammoth's strength had been reduced a little, but that didn't mean his bulking muscles were useless.

Raven's first instinct was to go down there and stop it, but how could she? No powers. Probably one of the shortest girls here. Hand-to-hand wasn't her specialty. She was useless as ever. Dick had inched his way to the edge of the bed. "What's happening?" he asked.

"Mammoth," Raven said.

At that point, Dick tried to stand up, but he couldn't go very far in his condition. He was just on the border of being sent to the infirmary. Maybe the place was full because the former Robin could hardly stand by himself. He did manage to hobble over towards the railing by the time the kid was dropped. Raven spotted a flash of green as Garfield pushed his way through the crowd. Just before Mammoth could punch the guy, Garfield was in between it.

"He's crazy," Dick breathed out.

Raven didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on Mammoth and Garfield. It was like comparing a piece of paper to a rock. Rock always won, doesn't matter what the stupid game said. Raven knew that if Dick was the one down there, which he probably would gladly be, he wouldn't have an issue actually knowing how to work without any powers. Hand-to-hand combat wasn't exactly Garfield's strong suit. Mammoth was still a man on steroids and he wasn't famous for his good temper. Raven felt her stomach twist and her chest got heavier as she watched them stand there for a moment. Why did Garfield have to be such an idiot? When Mammoth stocked away, Raven let out a breath and turned back around. Where was Kori when you needed her? She'd be all glass is half full, 'nothing would ever possibly happen to one of us,' and actually make Raven feel less tense. She figured the worst of it was over and moved back to grab her book from where she had dropped it on the floor.

She skimmed a page. Still the same boring melodrama she was not willing to dedicate her time to. In less than a few minutes, they'd be out to the yard for morning fresh air and a 9:30 head count. At least there it was mildly peaceful and she could find some place to meditate. She needed to clear her head. Her emotions were already acting up more than they should. Control. She needed to keep that.

She re-read chapter 13 where the ridiculous plot twist is revealed. By the time she finished, footsteps were coming their way. Raven saw a flash of green out of the corner of her eye. "Hey, Rae, can you give Danny a hand here? His kind of got crushed," Garfield joked. It wasn't remotely funny. Every time some poor soul was thrown in here, Raven ended up playing nurse since she had an understanding of the human anatomy. Vic was better at it, but somehow anyone that Garfield found was given to her.

Raven snapped her book closed and turned back towards Garfield to see the 'friend.' A boy with messy black hair was looking down at a bruised hand that he cradled. He was taller than Garfield and well-built. When he looked up, she recognized the ice-blue eyes and every last feature. This was the boy that she had fought just yesterday. Her eyes widened. When he recognized her, he jumped back and would have fallen if Garfield didn't catch him.

"You have to be kidding me! Her?" the kid called. That was just about what Raven was thinking.

"No," Raven said decisively. That thing had fought her and tried to kill her when it wasn't mandatory. The scary part was that he had nearly done it. She started walking away.

"Rea, come on," Garfield called.

"There's a kit right there, have fun," Raven said already down the walk-way and climbing down the steps.

Garfield looked from Danny's hand back to the first-aid-kit. He didn't notice Danny's wild-eyed expression as he stared at Raven going down the steps. He was following every movement, every flinch, every step. Garfield looked towards Dick. "Do you know how to fix a hand?" he asked.

"No," he said. Dick's glasses flashed in the artificial light as he moved his head up. "Who's the new guy?"

"Danny," the teen introduced himself offering his good left hand after a moment of silence.

"Robin," he extended his own left hand in an awkward shake. The two sized each other up whilst mentioning the cities they were from. Amity Park. Jump City. Both locations were slowly and reluctantly disclosed. Dick was shorter, as usual, but Danny didn't look like much of a threat to him.

"Jump City?" Danny was basically sounding out the name. His eyes darted around Dick's cell looking at every detail as he spoke. "I guess that means this prison is in your hometown."

"What makes you figure that?"

Danny motioned to the speakers overhead but his eyes didn't stop darting, "20's music radio. Please tell me you guys don't actually like that stuff." Dick caught on to what he was doing.

"Not in the slightest. I think our grandparents do," Garfield joked going through the first-aid-kit. Garfield remained oblivious.

Garfield wasn't a great medic, but at least he managed to patch up Danny's hand so that it was a little relieved of pain. Danny wasn't one to complain. Dick was the one asking all the questions while Garfield would joke whenever things got tense. That mostly came up whenever Dick started asking about criminal record and Danny kept joking instead of giving a straight-forward answer. Even Garfield could catch that. Powers, or lack of, was also a secret between the two of them. Somehow, they mostly talked about the terrible 20s music over their heads.

Danny's hand was temporarily patched up with plenty of time to spare before the 8:30 bell cut through the radio and buzzed signaling it was time for fresh air. Whoever had gone back for an hour of sleep would be pulled out of their beds. Danny watched everyone moving down stairs. Garfield told him he had to be down there for count or he'd be in trouble. Danny gave them an awkward wave before leaving. He still checked over his shoulder once or twice with a glance that could have been easily missed.

"Nice guy," Garfield commented.

"I don't trust him," Dick said. "He seemed too dodgy. Raven didn't seem to like him either."

"When does Raven like anyone?" Garfield asked light-heartedly. He helped Dick to his feet and they started walking down to the lower levels. "Besides, it's not like we _have_ to talk to him again. I just figured the new guy could use some help on the first day."

"I think he might turn into one of those snitches we'll have to watch out for," Dick said looking down at the mob of people that were being lined up by guards.

Garfield was instantly sent into confusion. It's not like they had any plans whatsoever that would be against the rules. They had been following the same routine for four months with only a couple of exceptions. "Snitch? What would we be doing that would require a snitch to bust us?"

Dick shrugged, "I've been taking a few walks lately. Found something pretty interesting."

**Not my favorite chapter, but I got the points across. Tell me what you think. Is it good? Is it dreadful? Favorite part? Criticism? Praises? You invested your time so type in a comment and tell me what you think.**


	4. Chapter 4

**I didn't realize it at first, but I made a perfect set up for angst-filled glory which I'd rather avoid. How did I not realize it after writing the prologue? I have no idea, but I didn't. Maybe it's because I've watched Raven's dad, a brain in a jar, Brother Blood, Slade put the Titans in such drastic situations and then watched everyone walk away almost like nothing happened. Anyway, that's why the chapter took so long. I was actually debating how traumatized these people were! Even in their superhero careers they had to have some pretty traumatizing moments I took that into consideration! That's a terrible thing to have to think about! If the series can tone it down, then I'll probably go way too far one way or the other...**

**Sorry I didn't put this before: Dick=Robin, Garfield=Beast Boy, Kory=Starfire, Victor=Cyborg, Raven=Raven**

Chapter 3: Details

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Danny looked at his patched-up hand as he walked down the single-file line of prisoners to god-knows-where. Well, it wasn't a great fix, but it was good enough. Personally, Danny had no idea how to fix a broken, sprained, or twisted hand. He hardly knew the difference. School was never exactly the first thing on his mind, especially health class, probably the most dreaded of all classes.

Sam, knowing how to make natural medicines out of some random berry in the woods and plenty of other witchdoctor gimmicks, was his medic most of the time while Tucker just stood there and made fun of him for breaking a bone again. Just because Danny had advanced healing, it didn't mean a broken bone didn't hurt any less and was a laughing matter, but how could he be mad a Tucker? The guy didn't know and Danny never really chose to complain since Sam was always right there and some idiot guy thing inside of him always wanted to be tough-ish around her.

Of course, that was before he got mixed up in all of this mess and was thrown into a detention center and now this correctional facility. It was amazing how many different ways you could phrase the word "prison" and give it a sort of honorable ring when it really was a box full of idiots, thugs, and him. He wondered how Sam was doing. Last he saw Sam and Tucker, they were running, same as him. Only, he was naturally faster and sped ahead. It was a terrible decision now that he had time to reflect. He should have stayed with them. He should have protected them and now…that's the worst part. Danny had no idea what happened to them. All he can remember is the fear in their eyes as the shouted for him to run. He wished he had stayed behind to help in some way. But, he didn't.

They could be in this place too if they were unlucky enough. Danny pictured Sam in one of those testing warehouses. A horrified expression in her eyes as she figures out what happens after the buzzer. What happens after that didn't dare enter his mind.

He walked towards the door where a prison guard patted him down and then let him out into a giant caged-off field. If Danny had to describe this place in a word: Chernobyl. Upturned pieces of concrete and bars were just sticking out of the rough dirt floor that was sprinkled with trash of brand-name snacks everywhere, tall menacing walls were chipped and their thin layer of paint was peeling, everything smelled like a clever mix of the dumpster and water. If he was going to figure this place out, he might as well look at the rest of this disaster. A few prisoners laughed and decided to make quick remarks as he ran past.

"Where you goin', snowflake?"

"Nowhere to run."

"Yeah, keep moving, that'll keep you safe."

"Where do you think you're going to get."

Patience was one of those things Danny learned after getting ripped on by Dash every other day of his high school career. Ignoring them came naturally, but he'd admit it was a pretty annoying distraction as he tried to keep count of his steps. The wall a few hundred yards away blocked Danny's view of anything past it. Obviously there was no city, but he could have probably seen a road if that damn wall wasn't so high. Danny looked around. There was at least one guard for every fifty feet and a ton were scattered at ground level.

He had decided that he was going to escape and he hadn't forgotten that decision, in fact, it was a desire that was screaming at him so loudly that it was taking a good amount of patience not to do something stupid right now. Taking a breath, he started running down the perimeter of the fence to at least get an idea of what he was up against and make sure that if he was going on foot, there'd be no problem, even with human speed. Small details made big plans.

Obviously, they had guards on the watch towers. The fence wasn't electric. The wall was pretty high and there was a guard tower in the distance. It didn't look like there was some sort of shield around the perimeter. Ghost shields always had that obvious green tint to them. There were three buildings inside the wall in total. The one he had just come out of looked about six stories tall.

The next took up the most space and blocked out most of the perimeter. That place was ridiculously well guarded and blocked off any exit Danny would have used going out the back of this facility. Stone walls were cut off by those giant buildings and there were plenty of guards parading around it.

At only two stories tall, the third building was -by far- the smallest. Prisoners were moving in and out of it and some were loading furniture onto trucks. How else do you fund a prison besides making the crappy foldable chairs that always broke after two uses? The _prisoners_ loaded on the furniture into the truck. A guard glanced at the truck once and then it sped away to freedom at the wall's gate. It all started to make sense - the reason those chairs were terrible. Danny had no idea how the hell he was going to get out of here.

He was going to figure something out. Maybe he should start being social.

"Where do you think you're goin', snowflake?" called one of the guys when he ran by.

…maybe not. And, how did he resemble a snowflake?

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Dick hobbled through a single-file line out into the courtyard, just like every other day. It was driving him insane. But, routines all had their weaknesses. They played the same list of music every morning starting with "Please Be Kind" by Django Reinhardt and the last would be "the Ballroom Waltz" sung by an annoying Cliff Eidelman. The music's date ranged from the 1920s-50s and it was annoying to listen to them every single time.

To break his pattern, Dick had made a point of inspecting and learning something new about all three buildings of this prison center every day. All three had their own little labels including the "mad house" as it was nicknamed, where every prisoner lived row upon row, the "dog house" which was the testing and correction center where they had to go through fights at least once a week, the "office building," or warehouse, including, but not limited to, a woodshop, metal shop, computer lab, and filing system all overseen by guards. Cyborg and Raven worked in the metal shop by some kind of stroke of luck. Dick had to pull some strings and make some trades to work in the filing system in the hopes that he could snag some crucial information about this place every now and then. So far, the most impressive thing he found was the ridiculously high the pay role of these guards.

There were exactly sixty two guards outside right now. Twenty four wandered through the open court yard while the rest were stationed either on the overhang of the buildings and walls or in the watch towers. Their shifts were in eight-hour intervals and they changed at 10:00 after the first morning count at 9:30. Their radios, at normal times, were always on channel 3, channel 4 was for maintenance, channel 2 was for the defenses by the wall, beyond the fence, channel 5 for minimum security inside of the "dog house," channel 6, which was always monitored, was an emergency channel, and 1 and 7 were private channels that weren't anywhere on the record.

"So, where's this thing?" Garfield asked in a hushed voice as he guided Dick through the swarm of prisoners that all clumped together at the door before they moved on to the benches.

"I'll tell you about it later. You should get back to work before they notice you're late," Dick said.

"Don't worry about that. Show me what it is now or it'll drive me crazy all day. They don't care if I'm late or anything, as long as I get my job done," Garfield said with a light shrug.

Dick motioned his head towards the mad house. Garfield set Dick down on one of the thousands of makeshift benches that were formed from the old foundation that had to be broken and dug into three years ago to make more room, the unorganized pieces of concrete were already scratched in and marked by other prisoners like a real park bench in Jump City. Even the standard garbage of the Lay's and Ruffles brand names, the only junk food this prison seemed to provide for the guards, was tumbling across the dirt like it would in the park. "There's an open vent right there on the fourth floor. You see it?"

"Yeah," Garfield said looking up at the brick building. Sure enough, four floors up on the right side of the building was the trademark square of a metal vent, just that one in the most obvious spot.

"Stop staring at it," Dick said quickly.

Garfield moved his eyes to his shoes. "What about it?"

"The entire building is infused with that ventilation system, but it's all behind the wall except for that spot."

"I see where you're going, but we scratched that plan before, didn't we? Remember the thirty foot wall?" Garfield asked motioning towards the brick building.

"Thirty-_five_ foot wall and it's not a problem," Dick said. "The guards were doing some kind of investigation two weeks and they accidentally dug up a sewage pipe line that came from the mad house. Maintenance kept on going on for hours how they ended up miles away from the facility when they were looking for other problems while they were fixing that one. All we have to do is dig into the wall into the vent system, crawl down to the lower floor, find the pipe line and we crawl our way out."

"Crawl through a sewage line? That's nasty man," Gar practically gagged and his face twisted at the simple idea of it.

"Walk, crawl, does it matter? Do you want to stay here?" Dick asked almost threateningly. Garfield looked like he was trying to picture another day in the "dog house." Dick knew what he thought of that place. Barbaric, inhumane fighting against people that used to be his allies, honorary titans, and the mandatory inability to hold back was all that came with this place. He could hold his own for a while, but against all of these teenagers with super strength and dimension-warping powers, he wasn't able to keep it up and the infirmary seemed like a sight that was humiliatingly too familiar.

Garfield let the objection die, no doubt considering his own grievances. "One more problem: the cameras. They see the entire cell. We should try digging somewhere else."

"We're monitored even more everywhere else. Everything but the right hand corner where it's perched," Dick said. "You never noticed the blind spot?"

"I was never really paying that much attention," Garfield said. "Are you gonna tell everyone else, or should I do it?"

"I'll do it," Dick said with that quick authority that made him their unquestioned leader.

"Are you going to be alright with Kory?" Garfield asked wincing and bracing himself for any kind of negative reaction, because, logically, there couldn't be a positive one.

Dick clenched his jaw and the shallow glare, even behind his sunglasses, was an easy thing to sense, and he knew it. What was he supposed to say to Kory? He would just tell her what was going on, it couldn't be that hard. She…she'd be fine. Dick nodded before Garfield felt the need to ask again, "Yeah. Yeah, I'll talk to her."

"You're sure man? I mean after-"

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said darkly. There was no reason for him not to. If he was going to remain the team leader, he sure as hell was not allowed to break down and have a doubt about _anything._

Garfield nodded and helped Dick walk to his station in the warehouse before running off to another section of the office that issued out the perks in the left wing rooms 24-27. Minor details were sometimes the most crucial things that he'd have to pay attention to. It was 9:02. He had a good hour and a half before he'd see Kory. He pinched the bridge of his nose, drawing the sunglasses down a little. He could do this.

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Danny didn't want to stop running when a sharp buzz interrupted the 20's music on the loudspeaker, signaling a head count or something. Everyone was talking and grumbling and pushing and it was just a big mob that was trying to form up, which always leads to controlled chaos. He was immediately pushed into a line and into someone.

"Please," said a light voice. It was obviously a girl's and it seemed pretty fragile.

Instantly, Danny apologized. It kind of came as an instinctive reaction after miserably failing trying to get a date…ever in high school. Those were just not his glory days. When he turned around to see who he had crashed into, it was quiet possible his jaw dropped, a tan…orangey tan, green-eyed, red haired girl was shyly holding one arm close to her. Sam probably would have shoved Danny back, being the moody Goth she was. This girl was cute to say the least, but then again, if she was here, something had to be wrong. For all he knew, she could be working with demon girl. That'd be Danny's own personal hell right there. It took him a while to realize while thoughts were running through his mind, he was still staring at the girl. It was probably a mistake not looking at his shoes. He fixed that error and instantly looked down.

"Are you new to this place of imprisonment?" she asked as guards pushed a few people and everyone around them buzzed with conversation. Her voice was kind of light and chirpy.

Danny looked up at him again, "How could you tell?"

"You are saying the 'Sorry' very quickly," she said. _Okay, her grammar was kind of weird. Foreign girl? Besides Jersey, there aren't orangey-tan people with red hair._

"Sor-I mean, that's a bad thing?"

"No. I find it rather good, but others are not as appreciative of such things. It has been a while since someone was nice." Wow, a kindly person in this kind of place. Didn't the beast kid say that these were just guys with powers? Not directly villains, so some of them had to be nice if they were ex-heroes. She didn't look like a villain in any way. He doubted this girl, with her giant green eyes, would be able to hurt a fly. That's actually what he thought about a lot of ghosts he fought before and that _always _worked out well. Yeah - no.

"Don't get used to it," Danny said making his tone venomous and shifting away from her. Unfortunately, her discouraged big green eyes instantly made him feel like a jerk even after saying something so menial! It wasn't even like he directly insulted her! What is it with girls and that little puppy look that makes them so pitiful? Sam would only reserve that face for a big deal and Danny always hated it when, someone as reserved as her, did use it. "Sorry," he muttered, unable to think of anything better.

Somehow, that was more than enough for this girl and those big green eyes were bright again. "I know. It is not easy here. But, you do not have to act like a florgrath to talk to others," she said with a cheerier demeanor, not sunshine and rainbows everywhere cheery, but enough to make another person's day better.

Danny overshot all of that and furrowed his brows focusing his confusion on one, probably irrelevant point. _What was a florgrath?_ He didn't say anything just creating that ridiculously long, uncomfortable silence between them while he was trying to think it out.

"What is your name?" she asked with a timid side-ways glance, breaking the silence.

"You first," he asked still a little unsure of what to think of her.

Her own look mirrored his, slightly skeptical and confused, but, unlike Danny, she was quicker to trust and said, "Starfire. And you?"

"Danny," he relented. People were going to learn it sometime and this girl seems harmless enough. Besides, it's not like introducing himself was going to cause a problem.

"You do not have a title for hero or villain?" she asked with that side-ways glance.

"Just Danny." A man passed him and checked off something on his clip board and then moved in front of Starfire, continuing the pattern. Why did everyone expect him to have a stage name? He kind of had one…Danny Phantom which was a disguise for Danny Fenton…Wow, he needed a new stage name. Now that he thought about it, everyone he met had had stage names. Mammoth probably had some sort of wimpy real name, but sticking with Mammoth made him all the more threatening. "Why, is that going to backfire on me?" Danny asked genuinely concerned.

"I suppose not," she shook her head, a warm smile growing on her face. It really didn't take a lot to make her smile. It's not like he said anything that would cheer up anyone. "It depends on the people that you will do the work with."

"Work?" Danny squinted. No one bothered to explain anything to him. Instead he had to ask people and look like a punk. That was just great! At least he wasn't talking to demon girl.

"They did not tell you of the work schedule?" she pointed to the smallest building on the lot. In his last prison, it was nothing but that stupid cell and a social hour of hell, he didn't even know prisoners _could_ work. She lowered her eyes and started speaking to her shoes like the world was clouded again, "They assign you a job and you spend the day there."

"You sound ecstatic," Danny said sarcastically.

"I am not," she said to her shoes still. Danny could tell he was on that line of emotional problems of others and casual conversation. "I hope my friend will not be angry with me when I go there."

"Why? What'd you do?" Danny asked as a natural response. Human curiosity always was a bad thing to follow in this kind of situation.

"A terrible thing, and I am worried that my friends will not be forgiving me for it," Starfire said. That had an obvious story behind it, but Danny didn't want to guess, and frankly, it wasn't his business. He remembered all his messed up situations he had to deal with and confess to his friends. Probably one of the worst is when he met his future self and found out he was destined for a career with evil because of something they had nagged him earlier not to do. That was a fun conversation to have, but they were his friends. Never once did they turn their back on him and once he got out of here, he was going to find them too.

The buzzer went off again, making everyone scatter and move back to wherever they were before it. Starfire started walking away towards the building like she was approaching an execution. "Hey, Starfire." She turned around. "If they're your friends it shouldn't be an issue, right? It's kind of their job to forgive you. I donno. Good luck." Danny scratched the back of his head and waved her away as he started off in the opposite direction. He'd figure out his "job" later. For now, he was going to try to remember as much of the property's details as possible, which ment more jogging.

"Thank you," he heard her say.

.

Raven loathed the metal shop. That was the only way to describe it. It was a fun thing to help Victor rebuild his car, but that was in the quiet of the Titan's garage. Here, there was noise everywhere. It wasn't like Raven could just stop moving and the noise would stop too. Nope. Cutting, welding, shining, drilling, pressing, everything made a sound in the compact space.

Okay, it wasn't compact at all, the entire garage was about half the size of the testing rooms, but she could still hear everything. It didn't help that a migraine was killing her. She skimmed the pages of the safety manual, which was not at all followed in this place, but what did she care? Her hair was tied up and nothing was going to set her clothes on fire from where she was standing.

Being in charge of the painfully dull process of cutting raw steel to size using a saw that looked bigger than her was more than loathsome in her book. How these people thought she'd be remotely useful in this department was a mystery to her. Library. Send her to a library if they had one. At least she wouldn't be reading a safety manual for the sake of variety.

"I can't use that thing if my life depends on it," Raven said skimming over the instruction manual for the large hunk of machinery in front of her. Victor was the one that usually handled this kind of stuff while she took advantage of the limited time to meditate. Now, she had to make the quota on her own because of what was probably happening to Vic.

She peaked over the book to see the empty space where she should have been getting her work done. Guards patrolled up and down the warehouse and were always watching to see if someone would try to sneak a piece of metal. There was some kid looking at her funny on the other side of the room. It dawned on her that this was the first time that she had been without Vic in this place for more than a day. Usually most of her view of this place was blocked by the hulking cyborg.

One day he was with them, and overnight he was gone, taken away, just like everyone else. Thrown in the "dog house" for Doctor Hillsberg's kicks, Vic must have caught the man's interest with something he did in that warehouse. That's what Raven was going to think because the other thing that could have happened didn't give him a chance of coming back to the team. What kind of sick man thought throwing Vic into a warehouse, forcing him to duel an opponent with whatever little he was given, and then going through Vic's very programs to change up his systems, completely destroy anything familiar about him and restricting- STOP!

Raven snapped the book shut and began to mindlessly measure the metal beams. Red hot blood was trickling down from the palm of her clenched hand. She couldn't get angry. If she got angry her powers would go off and they'd have no place to go but inside her body. She already had plenty of bruises and minor cuts from her previous episodes. There was only so long that she could feel nothing when her mind magnetically wandered to everything around her and all the bad here. Optimism was never her natural forte. Meditation every day was something she had to work for and her emotions boiled inside her just dying to get out, if she didn't calm them down, they set themselves off and lashed out at whatever they could get. If Raven wasn't careful, she'd end up breaking her own bones because of an involuntary temper tantrum.

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Dick drummed his fingers against his forearm as he stood, leaning against the wall adjacent to the runner's assignment sheet posted on the wall to room 25. Most people had already passed it by, but he knew Kory showed up a little later than the mob and would be here in five minutes at most.

It wasn't like it was the end of the world, but what was he supposed to say? Just his plan. He could say it and walk, or at least hobble, out without having to deal with any emotional weaknesses. He wished he could do this when he wasn't injured, but they needed to start digging as soon as possible.

Soon enough, the red-headed Tamaranian walked in with a smile on her face. Now was a terrible time for a loss for words, but she just seemed so normal right there. If she faced him, she'd instantly frown. He knew it.

"Kory," Dick said gathering his courage which always seemed to fail whenever something remotely emotional happened. It's not like Bruce was a great mentor for how to deal with that department. She wouldn't even look away from the paper when she heard his voice, but her lips lowered to a grimace. Her green eyes pinned on the ground and she twisted her fingers as she slowly turned to face him.

"Richard. I am sorry I have not spoken to the team recently." Dick didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. If she was upset, why would she have to face everyone at once, but, at the same time, why didn't she go to them? Her eyes caught onto his lopsided posture as he kept his weight shifted onto his right side, which was in better condition. "Are you…alright?" she asked timidly.

"I'm fine. The team was a little worried," Dick said trying not to show his discomfort in standing. Dammit! She wouldn't even look at him! "Really, Kory, I'm fine."

"I'm sorry," she said to the ground. "I-I did not mean to harm you. I have been doing the thinking and have been trying to find a way to talk with you, but I was hoping it would be an encounter a little later than this one. However, I am truly sorry, I…"

Why did she feel so guilty? He's the one that struck first. He was quicker to submit to that idiot doctor. Now, she thought _she_ was the one that had something to be ashamed of. Everything about her was so kind and innocent and it made his heart twist to see her even consider, for a second, that any of that was her fault.

They wouldn't even be near this place if it wasn't for his obsession. He was the one that convinced the team. He was the one that had thought it would be an easy job. He was the one that let them get caught. If anyone should be ashamed to look at a team-mate's eyes, it was the former Robin. But, he couldn't afford to give himself what he deserved. Not now. He couldn't have doubt or self pity. He had to look at her no matter how much the guilt killed him.

If he closed his eyes, she wouldn't be able to see behind his sunglasses, but he had to do it. He cut her off from her apologetic babble. "It's not your fault. Hillsberg is the one that's making all of this happen," he lowered his voice. "None of it is your fault. We're going to stop him."

"But, we are responsible for the actions. I fear that we-" Why was she still talking to her shoes? Couldn't she look up at him? Her green eyes were pinned on nothing but some stupid speck of dirt on the plank of wood! For once in his life, Dick was starting to get jealous of a _floorboard_! Why couldn't she just look up at him so that he could face her and not the other way around?

"It's not your fault! Stop looking at the ground!" Dick said seething in anger and banging a fist against the wall. All he could think about was the fight between them. Someone had actually planned it, set them up there, and observed. It was the ultimate humiliation and insult. If he ever found Hillsberg, he'd be a step away from breaking his one rule when it came to villains.

Kory cringed, misinterpreting the reason for his anger. Her eyes were wide with fear and they were pinned on him. "I am sorry," she said with fear obviously trying to be masked by her voice. She wasn't Raven; her fright was more than visible. No, he couldn't be the one that made her so scared.

"It's not your fault," Dick said calming himself down. He offered a wary smile. "I mean it. Listen, once we're out of here, everything will be fine."

"I fear that our team cannot stay together for very long like this," Kory said.

"No. We've made four months. We're going to stay together."

"How do you know?" she whispered childishly. Her eyes dropped down just in sadness this time. Her lips curled down into a hopeless doubt. He hated it when she looked like that.

He started to whisper so that no eavesdroppers could hear. He took a breath and just tried to get through the part that he had planned to skip to, "I have a plan to get us out of here, as a _team_."

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Garfield walked through the mechanics shop at 12:00, the buzzer had rung declaring it lunch or at least that disgusting substitute they all called lunch. He wandered through the garage where she was assigned for her hours of work.

"Raven," he said in a low tone. He had been running up and down the prison all day collecting laundry. If the thought of Mammoth being on the list of people to collect from doesn't get to a guy, Garfield didn't know what would. "Time to go. High-school food galore," he joked lightly. He knew it was a bad one, but it wasn't exactly like he was in the most cheerful mood.

"The anticipation is killing me," Raven said in her usual drool monotone. It kind of scared Garfield how well she was able to do that. Not because she'd never laugh at a joke, he was used to that and it was a pretty kiddy reason to be scared. She just didn't know how to tell good comedy yet. What was scary to Garfield was that he didn't know how she was taking any of this. She could be one step away from a mental breakdown and her voice wouldn't give an inch to let him make sure that it wasn't just his over-active imagination wandering to other things since video games weren't allowed here. At least her powers were under control, that's something, he guessed.

She was always in control of them, but there hadn't been a time where she got angry and dark-energy fire started to engulf her. He wished it was that easy for him. Although he usually got to use his powers once a week, there was always some kind of animal instinct inside of him that was dying to get out. It was a craving that he couldn't get rid of. Repeatedly, he'd try to change on the spot and nothing would happen. No result ment no satisfaction, and Garfield sometimes felt like he was going a little crazy not being able to turn into any animal he wanted at any time. Sometimes he just wanted to jump from a high place or dive into any puddle he found after a rainy day and turn into an animal. Of course, he never went through with it because he knew he wouldn't change, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't tempted at times.

"You don't have to be all grumpy today."

"Why not today?" she raised a skeptical eyebrow dropping a new beam onto a small criss-cross platform. The edges were jagged and some of the bars were uneven, but Raven wasn't great with these kinds of tools anyway.

"Dick's got some good news," Garfield said keeping his enthusiasm as controlled as possible, but he wasn't nearly as good as Raven.

She glanced over to her left where some muscle-kid was staring at her. He winked after she caught his gaze and walked out, whistling one of the tunes that played over the loudspeaker all the time. Now, it was just the two of them in the garage section of this warehouse. Garfield raised an eyebrow following the guy with his eyes, "Uh…okay then."

"Ignore it," she said walking past him. "Is this the good kind of good news or that you found a stupid new deck of cards?"

"Don't be all mad because you're terrible at card games," Garfield said lightheartedly.

"When is the last time you've seen me _want_ to play Go Fish?" Raven said in her deadpan voice that only managed to improve Gar's mood, because for a split second, it felt like nothing was wrong.

"No, it's something that's really good. You might even smile…that or the world will collapse," he laughed at his own joke. Raven didn't even flinch, but Garfield knew she found it a little funny, she had to. Outside, the fresh air smelled like, well it was terrible. As they walked from the warehouse to the dog house, Garfield noticed there were the few kids that always lingered behind and waited for the mob to die down and then there was one that was just running in the opposite direction like he was some civilian out on a morning jog. It was the Danny kid. He sped up running past them and Raven visibly cringed.

"You alright?" Garfield asked tracing Danny in the corner of his eye. The guy looked harmless, but so did everyone else. But, come on. He couldn't even defend himself from a broken hand; Raven wouldn't cringe for something like that! If they fought, she would have beaten him in two minutes tops.

"Yeah," she said half-heartedly.

.

"Doc, what is the new one doing?" asked his boss.

Hillsberg looked through the one-sided mirror at the top of the testing and experimental facility into the open courtyard. With a flick of his eyes, Hillsberg could identify any one of his patients and the new one, also known as Subject Phantom, was running up and down the courtyard and ignoring the lunch bell. Other subjects were following the suit, but none of them were moving from their seats.

"Running, sir?" Hillsberg raised an eyebrow unsure of what he ment.

"He has a history of escape attempts. Schedule another fight. We need to make sure he understands not to make trouble."

"But, sir, we were making advances with Subject West. I think in less than a week he'll be the perfect-"

"Mr. Hillsberg, even though we both have the same goal and have five successful subjects, we have different priorities. Unlike you, I know that a test subject can't make advancements if they are lost altogether from some Hail Mary attempt to leave this place. Schedule a test for him against Subject West if you really want," he said without a hint of doubt. "That'll teach him how to run."

"Sir, we've- we've made plenty of advancements," Hillsberg felt like he needed to offer this information. "The five first successes are now remarkable chattels for us and we already have people in-"

"I know that, Mr. Hillsberg," he cut off the Doc. "I am seeing results, but every time one of these idiots pulls an escape attempt, weeks of effort are blown back because of a new spark of hope. Speaking of sparks, how's Subject Stone coming along? Any progress?"

"He's a better machine than ever and much easier to control. He was a partially flawless system at first, but I believe in a week or so, he'll be perfect. All that's left is to break a part of him and he should be our sixth successful experiment. One of our best."

"That's why I pay you, Hillsberg."

.

**Okay, focus is back on the Titans for this chapter. I'm getting around to finding a balance. So follow, favorite, comment. What needs improvement? What did you like? Best part? Worst part? Thoughts? Predictions? Questions? All the rest. You invested this much time. What do you have to say?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry about forgetting this: Wally West= kid flash...I'm probably going to be doing that often.**

…**I feel like a terrible person after writing this.**

**Soulhuntress: no, his family has no idea. They captured "Phantom" not "Fenton"**

Chapter 4: Iniquitous Rooms

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A flash of white revealed a shining pole and defined square seats all down a row. The silhouette of a man blocked out the light. Danny tried to walk towards it, but the lights went out and he was left in the dark. Another flash revealed the silhouette again. It was one seat over. Danny tried to walk, but something held him back. His hands were cuffed together around the pole.

A white smile gleamed on the figure's face. "Too tight, Phantom?"

The lights flickered once more and there was suddenly a man at his feet, unmoving, unresponsive, with a half-open eye, lying on the floor with his arm drawn around his neck and Danny was attached to this figure by a gleaming handcuff. Trying to jump back, Danny got caught by the cuffs and was thrown forward on top of the dead body.

"Shit!" Danny screamed as he shot out of his bed and tumbled onto the floor. His eyes focused on metal bars and a concrete floor. Crackling 20s music broke the illusion. It was all a dream. All a bad dream.

A buzzer interrupted the song and the metal door swung open. "Subject Phantom, proceed to the door."

Danny noticed the white hallway and the blank environment. _Not this again._ Danny groaned. Poking his head out of the cell door, he knew it was the same stupid pure white hallway from the first time he woke. Did they move him in his sleep? That's weird, to say the least. The polished, welded, metal door was waiting for him on the other side of the constantly-narrowing hallway.

This place still managed to keep it's eerie charm and just stepping into the hallway seemed like an enormous task. Danny grabbed the cell door and tried to close it so that he was back in his safe little 7 by 7 cage. Unfortunately, the thing wouldn't budge and he was forced to give up the idea when the man on the speaker above him shouted, "Subject Phantom, do not tamper with company property!"

The pitch itself was enough to deafen someone. After that less-than-gracious warning, Danny sprinted through the hallway, still believing that it was too easy for him to walk down such a narrow space without anything grabbing at him or the walls falling in on themselves. It wasn't like Danny was claustrophobic; it had something to do with that particular hallway. Besides, white was never a good color for Danny to see. It always ment that agents were after him and he was going to have to high-tail it out of there or end up…here.

Danny went into the cramped elevator before the guy on the speaker could shout at him and make his ears bleed. The jolt up in the pitch-black space caught Danny by surprise and sent him crashing against the wall. Just then he realized that his hand wasn't in pain. He flexed it in the dark and there was no pain. When did that happen? It wasn't until the doors opened to reveal the bright white light that Danny managed to rise back to his feet. Squinting, he tried to get his eyes to adjust to the light and blink away the random spots of color that dotted the warehouse because of the sudden change. Just as the blotches started to fade, the guy on the speaker crackled through again. "Subject Phantom, Subject West, step out of the elevator."

Danny obliged as he started examining his surroundings. Unlike the last warehouse, this one had different elevations; platforms that kind of resembled city rooftops. The black window was to his right and there were more figures in it this time; Danny was sure of it. He squinted, trying to get a better look, but there was only so much he could see through that black screen.

"Subject Phantom, Subject West, turn to face each other."

Danny rolled his eyes, but he knew that he'd get shocked if he refused, slowly as possible, he turned to face some kid that was about his age. Red hair covered most of his right eye and his left was almost colorless. The whites of his eyes bleached most of the iris. Was he blind? No. He was looking at- no he wasn't looking at Danny; he was looking through Danny. Not a hint of expression or emotion showed on his face as he tilted his head up and down, surveying Danny. The only thing that caught Danny's eye about this guy's form was the new-looking black-and-white-check Nike shoes strapped on his feet. It took a lot to keep Danny from laughing. How did he get Nikes in here?

"Date: July 9. Place: Testing facility 3. Subjects: Phantom and West. Experiment: Effectiveness of enhancement agent on Subject West: Injection 2-98B."

Injection? Danny looked at the messy red-head in front of him. What kind of injection did they give him? Steroid type injection? What kind of powers did this kid have? If he was anything like the demon girl... If he wasn't, then Danny would have no idea what this guy could do until he made the first move. Villains always flaunted their powers and Danny got a feel for the basic attacks and weaknesses before he even threw a punch, but this was just hands down learn as you go along. That gave this kid, who was already some kind of prodigy, some kind of test tube injection… He was screwed in any other language.

"Inflicting mortal wounds: optional. Begin experiment in 3…2…1..."

A buzzer rang out over his head. Danny glanced up at the black screen trying to see the man who thought this was such a good idea. But, there was nothing but shadows. In the half a second he spared for that glance, the red-head disappeared. Before Danny could even change into his ghost form, something grabbed him from behind and half a second later, he was slammed against the wall. Without time to ready for impact, he hit full force and was gasping for air.

Whatever was holding him dropped Danny to the ground and let him cough and wheeze. Danny muttered a curse. What hit him? It didn't matter. If it could move that fast he had to change now! Two white rings flashed in front of him and circled his entire body changing him into his black and white jumpsuit. He really needed a costume change.

Something grabbed him by the back of his collar again, but Danny was ready and focused on making himself intangible. The momentum still made him fly forward, but he was out of this guy's grasp. Danny flew up into the air to try and see what this kid was using. Demon magic? Some kind of gear? What? All he could see was a flash of red hair running in circles on the floor of the warehouse, then up the wall, then on the roof and straight towards Danny. Keeping himself intangible, he watched the kid pass through him and slam into the wall on the other side. The impact made the kid topple and fall flat on the ground. There wasn't any kind of gear on him. Just the shoes, which were already worn. Danny could smell the burning rubber from all the way at the top of this warehouse.

This kid was just running. Danny watched him scurry on all sides and run up and down the walls trying to grab at Danny, but he just kept his form intangible and watched the kid run forward and back across the warehouse, getting more and more aggravated every time. This could go on all day and he wouldn't care.

Unfortunately, his thought was put to the test. He expected the guys to shock him for not participating like last time, or screw with his powers again, but they let him stay intangible and watch the kid run around. At one point, Danny flew up to the screen and tried to phase through it and there was no shock, just resistance and a warning from the guy on the speaker. They let him stay passive, but he was still trapped.

Hours had to be going by and the red-head was still running like a mad man. Was this guy ever going to get tired? He was starting to form ruts on the separate platforms as he jumped between each one and off the walls. Danny was starting to get tired himself. Even though he could turn intangible with ease, it's not such an easy task to hold it for hours. Danny never had to. This kid passed him at least ten times every other second, so he couldn't take a break from it.

It would have been smart for Danny to take an offensive stance, but he didn't want to hurt the red-head. Unlike demon-girl, this guy was at a complete disadvantage behind unable to touch Danny. There was no need for a fight and the guy looked freaky enough as it was. A bolt of energy to the face was just going to make it worse. Sure he was demented looking and all that, but there was some guy up behind that screen getting entertainment from watching this. He couldn't believe someone was sick enough to be entertained by two super-powered teenagers fighting each other for no other reason than because they were selected to be on opposing sides. It was partly compassion and mostly spite that kept him from even attempting to hurt the speedy red-head.

Eventually, he had to stop flying and sink down to the floor just to keep his passive strategy going as his mental concentration was strained by trying to balance more instinctive physical powers. This kid didn't look to be slowing down at all.

Weren't they going to call off this fight right around now? What time was it anyway? Did they get to eat? How long were they planning on keeping this up? The stray questions in Danny's head made him loose focus and in an instant, he was grabbed and slammed against the wall.

The jolt of pain sent a rush of adrenaline through Danny's system and he instinctively fought back, kicking against the wall and releasing a beam of green energy. Turning on his heel, he faced his opponent. The kid had no other emotion than a bland kind of annoyance on his face. Danny fired another beam of green energy and it shot him back against one of the walls of the platforms. Without time to even think about turning intangible, the kid managed to run across the roof, down the wall, grab Danny, spin him and throw him up towards the ceiling. The harsh impact was emphasized by the screaming steel he dented.

Falling back to the ground, Danny tried to switch to intangibility again, only to be jolted to one side in mid air. Something tackled him from behind and then left him falling, then again, and again. He was getting pushed around in mid-air by a kid who couldn't even fly! But, he could jump. Next thing he knew, Danny was slammed into the ground with the red-head standing over him with that creepy emotionless stare.

"Get back!" Danny lashed out a green concentration of energy, sending the kid flying across the room and slamming into one of the sides of the elevated platforms. Danny was not dealing with this anymore. It was all fun in games until this kid actually started throwing punches.

Gathering enough concentration to turn intangible again, he tried to phase through the floor. A sudden electric shock ran through his body and the white rings flashed in front of him over and over again. When it all calmed down, he was still in his ghost form. That stupid chip managed to monitor everything? It had control over his powers and did whatever else. If it was going to turn him into zombie boy over there, he wasn't going to stand for it. The only thing that annoyed him more than the chip was how long it took for him to remember what he could have done at the beginning of this.

"That's it," Danny turned his left hand intangible and reached into his right shoulder. All he had to do was grab the chip and- A harsh electric shock ran through his body the moment he touched the chip and the rings flashed in front of him again until he was back in his human state. Everything had happened in five seconds, at most, but that's all the red-head needed to recover, come running across the room and grab Danny by the throat.

There was no time to react and he was slammed into the floor in his weaker state. Agonizing pain in his arm sent Danny desperately back into his ghost form. His ice powers took over and Danny froze the runner in place with only his extended arm left out of the frozen encasement. The rest of "Subject West" was a Popsicle and Danny managed to slide out from his grip and focus on the injured arm.

His eyes were watering and there was some excruciating pain coming from his left arm. He tried bending it. Instinctively, a curse came out from under his breath. It had to be broken. When was the last time he had a broken bone? He didn't know. When was the last time he was hit in his human form? Some time back in high school. Supernatural strength was great and all, but why did it have to be limited to one form? It didn't matter right now. He could gripe and moan about being unable to hold his form later. The point was: his arm was broken. He wasn't a doctor, but ice was always a good thing. Dousing the pain with his cooling powers, he kept a wary eye on the frozen West. Was it over?

Danny thought too soon, and he watched as the red-head kid started shifting with the little room he had and he was a blur for a moment. Then, the ice cracked and the non-cartoon version of Speedy Gonzales was at it again.

"Come on! Don't you ever get tired?" Danny groaned. That's all he really had time for before he was met with a rapid fury of punches.

.

"That's it!" Phantom exclaimed. The subject concentrated his intangibility to his hand and reached into his shoulder.

"W-What's he doing?" asked Doc.

"He's going for the chip," he exhaled. "Wait for it…"

Phantom screamed in pain and the ghost converted to his human disguise again. West, quick to take advantage of the split-second opportunity, grabbed Phantom by the throat. West managed to break Phantom's left humerus and cracked the upper half of the ulna by throwing him to the ground.

"Well, he's not going to do that again," he said stirring his cup of coffee as the ghost-boy's scream of pain echoed through the warehouse.

"He's the third one to try it this month," the Doc said.

"They never learn." Phantom unleashed his freeze power, encasing West in ice and started tending to his upper arm with the odd ice-power in his hand. West was smart enough to generate enough heat by vibrating in place to break away from the ice-prison in thirty-seven seconds. "How long have they been fighting in there?" he asked the Doc.

"Eight hours, fifty-eight minutes, twenty-three, four, five, six seconds" the Doc glanced up at the clock. "They've only truly been in combat for thirty minutes."

"What was happening between that time?"

"Subject Phantom was intangible."

"You'd figure he'd be the more violent one."

"W-what do you mean by that sir?"

"Phantom is the murderer. West was a hero. Then again, West hardly knows his first name anymore. Either way, you'd figure the two would be in combat sooner, especially on Phantom's part."

"Subject West has been attacking Subject Phantom for the past eight hours, Sir."

"West has been running like that for eight hours?"

"Yessir. Y-you're sure you don't want me to take away one of Subject Phantom's powers?"

"Topping off all the other leashes we've put on him? Why spoil the fun? It's a success on its own that West is still going. His stamina limit was, what, five-ten minutes?" He looked at the monitor showing various physical monitors kept on West. His heart rate was steady and hardly over 120.

"Eight minutes and twenty seven seconds was our best record, Sir."

"And West hasn't even laid a hand on…wait…there he goes."

Phantom was suddenly thrown against the window, not breaking anything, but badly bruising his collar bone, and West was quick to peel Phantom off the wall and finish the job.

"He hasn't stopped once?"

"Only to take a rest for half a minute at the four hour mark, Sir. And, the impact of Subject Phantom's first attack crushed his right hand and he almost broke his right leg. He never had the supernatural strength to endure that kind of impact before, Sir," Doc pointed at the monitor. West was ignoring an injury and still actually using his right hand to throw punches at Phantom, damaging it more.

"Roth endured it."

"Um…well…Sir… She is not Subject West, Sir."

He watched as West ran through the various platforms chasing after Danny, who kept cutting through the narrow gaps between elevations and tried to stay out of reach. A cracked leg bone hurt like hell and West was running with one. If the former Kid-Flash was so quick to attack and sprint, it meant he wasn't holding back.

Nothing in the charts would have suggested any different, considering the different chemicals that had been pumped into him. Making him run faster was easy, but finding a way to keep him breathing at such high speeds and keep up stamina was a more complicated part. From what he saw, Subject West was a success all around.

He took one last sip of his coffee, pulled a twenty out of his pocket and dropped it on the Doc's clipboard. "Buy this room a box of doughnuts and call off the test in half an hour, or whenever Phantom breaks another bone. Patch 'em up and all that. Subject West is ready for a final test."

"Ye-Yessir."

.

Danny had been trying to avoid conflict since the beginning of this, but with intangibility and invisibility practically spent, he had to rely on his more instinctive powers than the ones that took concentration. He'd admit that he was never the best at keeping focus, which is why punching and flying were always a preference. The only thing he could focus on was the stinging pain of his right arm every single time he jerked to one side while flying.

Although Danny had managed to break 200 miles per hour before, he was limited to probably about 80 going in an extended circle around the warehouse and just barely avoiding West. In any other situation, Danny probably would have used his ghostly wail, but remembering how week he was last time, he didn't want to take a chance on this guy. He was always on Danny's tail or bouncing off the walls. Most of the time, Danny was weaving through the platforms trying to keep out of his reach and get a clear shot at the red-head. Unless this West guy was directly in front of him and pausing to throw a punch, Danny always missed the guy by a hair.

Danny flew past one of the lower platforms when the guy jumped him and sent Danny hurtling into the ground. Of course this guy had to tackle him from the left, slamming into his injured arm and crushing his right side. A buzzer rang out over Danny's scream.

The words from the speaker echoed in his head, "Subject Phantom vs. Subject West. Time: ten hours, thirty six minutes, eleven seconds. Injuries: recoverable. Result: success of injection 2-98B."

West released his grip on Danny and took an automatic step back, with his eyes looking off to somewhere else. Men in white suits came running through the elevators and restrained Danny first, keeping a tight grip on his arm so that he couldn't and didn't want to move.

"Subjects Phantom and West are dismissed from the testing facility. Subject West is to be returned to the testing laboratory. Subject Phantom is to be returned to the mad house."

.

Raven sighed as she scratched through the crumbling rock in her cell. Never had she imagined herself digging her way out of a prison and it wasn't a preferable picture now. No matter how much she detested the idea, she was standing on top of a toilet and chipping in the blind spot of the camera while the guards were occupied with people downstairs at lunch time. They had been keeping up this routine for two weeks. It had taken her that long to smuggle two makeshift chisels out of the metal shop. Really they were over-glorified scraps of sharp metal. Garfield was sitting on her bed, with his head against the cell wall as he watched for guards.

Most of the time, they never drew attention to themselves, but it wasn't like digging was a completely silent process and it was either too noisy or too slow to dig at night. Raven only had the lunch break to dig since she would be missed if she didn't do her job. Garfield and Kory had a lot of the day once their job was done. Sometimes, Raven felt like a real criminal in this place. This was getting humiliating beyond belief. A frustrated groan passed her lips.

"Gettin' tired of digging already?" Garfield asked with a half-smile not bothering to turn his head.

"You're lucky those things don't record sound or that would have been bad," Raven said flicking her eyes to the camera.

"Hm," he shrugged and looked back through the bars. "It'd be great if it was more than just the four of us. Ya know? If we had some help." Garfield had insisted on letting others know about the plan. More people ment more help, larger system, a unified group. He may have grown up and gotten taller, but he still had the same childish ideas that he did before. Sometimes, his idealism was too frustrating for Raven.

"And what do you think Dick would say to that?" Raven asked.

Garfield exhaled, "No one can be trusted."

"And he's right."

"Why are you two so paranoid? They're still people."

Raven faltered in her work and looked over at Garfield, hoping to see some kind of smile or joking expression. These people had tried to kill them, multiple times. Half of these people were villains in jump city and the rest hated being in a twenty-foot radius of the former Titans. How could Garfield still see the benefit of the doubt in stray kids? Especially in the one that tried to kill her! _Azarath…metrion…zinthos…_ "Tell me you're joking."

"I'm not," he said shifting into a darker tone. Under his breath, he said, "If I thought like that, I wouldn't even hang around you guys anymore."

Raven repeated her meditation in her head a few more times. She could question him on exactly what he ment by that, but that'd fuel her anger. Her limited meditation could only keep her so balanced. Sensing the change in Raven's behavior, Garfield was wise enough to change the topic.

"How's Kory doing?" he switched.

The tamerianian had decided to stick around the group the day that they were told this plan. The amount of nervousness on her that day drove Raven crazy. It took two days for Kory to talk normally towards the three of them again. She asked about Victor once to the former Robin and Raven remembered thinking how lucky they were that Garfield wasn't around at the time. Either way, she kept close to Raven after that, and apparently, "the braiding of each other's hair" was still on the table despite all of this. She talked to Garfield plenty and Dick in doses, but most of her socializing was with Raven. It was good to see Kory acting at least one shade of normal and bubbly.

"Fine. She's smiling a lot. I think this is getting her hopes up," Raven said.

"It's doing that for me," Garfield said.

"It shouldn't," Raven said trying to keep her concern from showing.

"You're always going to be negative," Garfield rolled his eyes.

"I'm realistic."

"Call it whatever you want."

_Azarath…metrion…zinthos…_a_zarath…metrion…zinthos…_ She looked at her progress, trying to block out the frustration, only two sides were done and she only had another ten minutes, at best. Focusing more on the brick, Raven didn't bother to give a response and let silence hang in the air. Besides, if she said anything else, she knew something inside of her would set off.

"It's been two weeks," he said with a voice just coated in downtrodden. "Vic's not…I mean."

Raven knew exactly what he ment. Victor still wasn't back. That ment one of two things. Either he was dead, or they were testing on him. The latter was becoming less and less plausible. What if he really was- _Azarath…metrion…zinthos…_a_zarath…metrion…zinthos…_

"We're not going to leave without him, are we?" Garfield whispered, dreading the answer. She could sense his unease with just a glance.

"That won't help."

What did he want her to say then? It's not like she had any clue about any of this! So far, it was a blind plan, but it was all they had! It's not like she was going to give Garfield false hope just-Raven felt a sudden rush inside her system and a sting of pain. She lifted her shirt off her stomach and saw a red gash down the side. One more trouble was the last thing she could worry about before a tipping point.

"Azarath," Raven said under her breath. With hardly any time to meditate, Raven hadn't been focused on keeping her emotions in check and this was going to keep progressing until she broke a bone.

"What's wrong?" Garfield asked turning.

"Nothing," Raven said, dropping her shirt and holding up the chisel. "You dig. I've got to go," she looked back towards the cell door.

Garfield eyed her suspiciously, hesitant to take the job. "Are you alright?"

"Peachy," she said sarcastically.

"Rae-"

"I don't want to talk anymore," Raven said quickly.

"Raven." She was already down the stairs and out the door to the courtyard.

.

Danny hated this place. No. Hate wasn't a strong enough word. Loathe? Still not strong enough. Abhor? He wasn't exactly sure what it ment, but that sounded close enough. For two weeks he had been fighting someone every other day in that stupid ring and every time he tried to pull this stupid chip out, the thing shocked him and sent him back to a human form. It was just frustrating and exhausting. Constant fights were something he got used to, but it was freaky going against people with powers he wasn't familiar with.

There had to be something he was doing wrong. That chip shouldn't be able to sense him. He even did it when he thought he couldn't be seen by the black screen, but it still shocked him! Danny couldn't spot any cameras on the walls. Everything had a weakness. This chip had to have one!

The only thing more frustrating than the fights was the daily job. At least he was used to having to fight on a semi-daily basis. But, a job? There's always that one thing Danny never wanted to do for a living; that was sit in a room that reminded him of school. Yet, he was assigned (thrown into when he refused to do the job) to a room with so much paperwork, it made him sick. His job was boring, repetitive, and overseen by guards 24/7. Most of it was just boring shipping reports. Never stating to where or for what purpose, just a list of furniture he was supposed to document. Just put the cheese grader to his forehead right now, it'd be less painful.

One of his least favorite parts of the job was that the guy he worked with was the sunglasses guy, Robin something-or-other. There was something off with him. He didn't enjoy the job any more than Danny, but he was always keeping his eyes on the guards and on Danny. Danny only just caught the guy glaring, and the guards weren't focusing on their eyes as much as they were focusing on how prisoners handled the information. Just the basic uneasy feeling he got with his ghost sense set off. Something was off about that guy.

There was only one revelation that managed to keep Danny from going insane. The two guards were talking close to the wall and one of them mentioned a deserted basement storage room in the office that was filled with junk tools. It's amazing how casually the information was thrown around. The Guard was complaining about his knee or arm or something and he said he was doing a weekly check on the room. Apparently, no one goes down further than a few steps and the only reason this guy was near the bottom of the stairs is because he tripped. Isolated, underground, and unchecked. Could it be anymore perfect?

.

**Ugh…just ugh…icky chapter…pacing too slow for brain…I hate setting things up *face palm* the realization of what kind of story I'm writing is getting to me.**

** Anyway, favorite, comment, follow, push the pretty button or fill in the box. Let me know the thoughts in your mind because I'm losing mine. Review= points for my sanity.**


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